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Aspiring Lawyers - Interviews & Vacation Schemes
Commercial Awareness Discussion
Picture Perfect? GIPHY Acquisition Raises Competition Concerns
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<blockquote data-quote="Dheepa" data-source="post: 75467" data-attributes="member: 1572"><p>So, the CMA has been very busy recently. Aside from the Facebook-Giphy merger discussed here, and the Seedrs Crowdcube merger discussed in <a href="https://www.thecorporatelawacademy.com/forum/ams/crowd-control-cma-blocks-equity-crowdfunding-merger.36/" target="_blank">last week’s article</a>, there’s been a string of recently announced investigations into some high profile mergers. Most notably:</p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">eBay and Adevinta’s merger. Both are classified ad companies which following a review by the CMA, have agreed to sell off Gumtree and Shpock respectively. The sale of Shpock in particular is subject to an upfront buyer requirement; the CMA must approve the potential buyer beforehand.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Viagogo and Stubhub’s merger. The CMA has ordered a partial unwinding, requiring Viagogo to sell Stubhub’s international operations.</li> </ol><p>These are all somewhat traditional inquiries into potentially anti-competitive practices, in the sense that the CMA are predominantly scrutinising the new merged entities’ market share, potential to reduce consumer choice or increase consumer prices.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand, there have also been slightly less traditional investigations. Most recently, the CMA announced investigations into Google’s Privacy Sandbox proposals, the tech giant’s solution to privacy concerns on third party cookies. According to Google, the Sandbox essentially consists of a range of tools that will allow the company to better target consumers and offer personalised ads. The dissenting view is that the new product will actually restrict open data sharing with smaller advertising companies. Is this really a data privacy tool or just another way for Big Tech to increase its monopoly and cut out smaller companies? I’ve chosen to discuss the Google investigation here because it exemplifies a very pertinent issue, that the CMA and traditional competition laws are perhaps not entirely fit for the novel ways in which Big Tech engage in anti-competitive practices.</p><p></p><p><strong><u>Effect on Law Firms</u></strong></p><p></p><p>The news story here is very centred on competition law and aside from the obvious uptick in competition work, there’s not much else to add. However some interesting things to think about if you’re choosing to discuss this at interviews:</p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Is traditional competition law sufficient to deal with the various acquisitions Big Tech make? While there may be a good basis for wanting to curb the Big Tech monopoly, a better regulatory framework is definitely necessary. At the moment, the UK government’s solution is the creation of the Digital Markets Unit within the CMA. The new unit is set to have wide ranging powers that will allow it to create codes of conduct for tech companies.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">How will a post-Brexit UK manage to stay a competitive market for tech companies with such an aggressive stance on competition issues?</li> </ol><p>As always feel free to jump in with your thoughts!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dheepa, post: 75467, member: 1572"] So, the CMA has been very busy recently. Aside from the Facebook-Giphy merger discussed here, and the Seedrs Crowdcube merger discussed in [URL='https://www.thecorporatelawacademy.com/forum/ams/crowd-control-cma-blocks-equity-crowdfunding-merger.36/']last week’s article[/URL], there’s been a string of recently announced investigations into some high profile mergers. Most notably: [LIST=1] [*]eBay and Adevinta’s merger. Both are classified ad companies which following a review by the CMA, have agreed to sell off Gumtree and Shpock respectively. The sale of Shpock in particular is subject to an upfront buyer requirement; the CMA must approve the potential buyer beforehand. [*]Viagogo and Stubhub’s merger. The CMA has ordered a partial unwinding, requiring Viagogo to sell Stubhub’s international operations. [/LIST] These are all somewhat traditional inquiries into potentially anti-competitive practices, in the sense that the CMA are predominantly scrutinising the new merged entities’ market share, potential to reduce consumer choice or increase consumer prices. On the other hand, there have also been slightly less traditional investigations. Most recently, the CMA announced investigations into Google’s Privacy Sandbox proposals, the tech giant’s solution to privacy concerns on third party cookies. According to Google, the Sandbox essentially consists of a range of tools that will allow the company to better target consumers and offer personalised ads. The dissenting view is that the new product will actually restrict open data sharing with smaller advertising companies. Is this really a data privacy tool or just another way for Big Tech to increase its monopoly and cut out smaller companies? I’ve chosen to discuss the Google investigation here because it exemplifies a very pertinent issue, that the CMA and traditional competition laws are perhaps not entirely fit for the novel ways in which Big Tech engage in anti-competitive practices. [B][U]Effect on Law Firms[/U][/B] The news story here is very centred on competition law and aside from the obvious uptick in competition work, there’s not much else to add. However some interesting things to think about if you’re choosing to discuss this at interviews: [LIST=1] [*]Is traditional competition law sufficient to deal with the various acquisitions Big Tech make? While there may be a good basis for wanting to curb the Big Tech monopoly, a better regulatory framework is definitely necessary. At the moment, the UK government’s solution is the creation of the Digital Markets Unit within the CMA. The new unit is set to have wide ranging powers that will allow it to create codes of conduct for tech companies. [*]How will a post-Brexit UK manage to stay a competitive market for tech companies with such an aggressive stance on competition issues? [/LIST] As always feel free to jump in with your thoughts! [/QUOTE]
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Picture Perfect? GIPHY Acquisition Raises Competition Concerns
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