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LIDC Congress 2025 Question A19.10.2025

We start our summary of the scientific program at the LIDC Congress 2025 in Vienna with the working session on relative market power as Question A.

We start our summary of the scientific programme at the LIDC Congress 2025 in Vienna with the following Question A "Is the concept of the abuse of relative market power beyond market dominance necessary for a functioning competition and what criteria should be used to assess it?"
The working session on this topic was opened with a presentation by Pranvera Këllezi, international rapporteur on this issue. In her international report, she demonstrated that not all countries have specific regulations on relative market power. Those jurisdictions that regulate the phenomenon of economic dependence have chosen different legal approaches: some use competition law, others unfair competition law or special legislation. The remaining countries rely on sectoral regulations or contract law to address bargaining power imbalances, or have no regulations at all.
The discussion, moderated by Muriel Chagny, initially addressed the question of market analysis and the assessment of the bilateral relationship. No uniform view emerged: a rather large proportion of participants favored an assessment focused on the bilateral relationship, while another group emphasized that a market analysis should in any case be conducted, even if this is only the starting point.
In discussing the question of whether a competition law framework is necessary to deal with relative market power despite the focus on the bilateral relationship, an interesting finding emerged regarding the role of competition authorities. Proponents of regulations on relative market power are less interested in the substantive competition law framework than in enforcement by competition authorities. As administrative authorities, they can intervene more effectively than courts, which is particularly significant in countries such as Austria, which does not have administrative enforcement of unfair competition law and consumer protection law. This view was confirmed by jurisdictions with hybrid authorities, such as Australia, whose representatives explained that mechanisms for regulating economic dependence are always useful for a hybrid competition authority, as it can choose whether to apply classic competition law, unfair competition law, consumer protection law, or sectoral codes of conduct.
However, some participants expressed concerns about the concept and the associated legal uncertainty. The view was put forward that competition law should not intervene if contract law respects the will of the parties – a classic perspective that is clearly present in common law as applied in the United Kingdom.
On the fundamental question of whether regulations on relative market power are necessary for maintaining functioning competition, there was no consensus, although a majority spoke in favor. In any case, it can be concluded that the concept is useful in certain cases, market structures, or sectors, and that such regulations can prevent abusive conduct relating to bilateral bargaining power.

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LIDC Congress 2025 Question A19.10.2025

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