More than 100 attendees – including the TDLC Minister, Enrique Vergara, and the former head of the FNE, Felipe Irarrázabal – filled the Eloísa Díaz Auditorium at the Head Office of the University of Chile to attend the Seminar “Digital Platforms and Free Competition”.
The use of personal data, the development of algorithms, and the acquisition of companies in the digital world were among the topics discussed at the Digital Platforms and Free Competition Seminar, organized by the MIPP Millennium Institute, the Center for Public Systems, and the Institute of Complex Engineering Systems (ISCI) which featured the participation of special guest Massimo Motta, an academic at Pompeu Fabra University and the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, who was also the Chief Economist of the European Commission’s Free Competition Division (2013-2016).
Other participants in the seminar included: Daniela Gorab, Minister of the Free Competition Defense Court (TDLC); Cristóbal Huneeus, Director of Data Science at Unholster; Marcelo Olivares, academic from the Industrial Engineering department, University of Chile; Juan Escobar, Director of the MIPP Millennium Institute and academic of Industrial Engineering; and Ana María Montoya, MIPP Researcher.
Problem exchange and the pro-competition market
“This type of collaborative activities are very useful for both academia and the Free Competition authorities, because they allow an exchange of problems and methods to solve issues of national relevance, such as the regulation of the increasingly common digital platforms,” Juan Escobar, Director of the Millennium Institute MIPP and academic of Industrial Engineering, explained about the Digital Platforms and Free Competition Seminar.
In this context, Massimo Motta focused his talk on the acquisition operations that large digital companies have pursued on potential competitors. “In the past, competition authorities have been criticized for the lack of merger control in the digital market,” he said.
During the talk, Motta said that Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have carried out more than 400 procurement operations in recent years. “However, of all these acquisitions, the free competition authorities have only analyzed 3 or 4 cases,” said Motta, who personally oversaw the WhatsApp acquisition operation by Facebook.
The international expert also said that the acquisition of potential competitors is important not only for digital markets but also for “regular” markets.
Motta indicated that not only is a new digital authority necessary in matters of free competition, but also that the burden of proof needs to be reversed for dominant market players. “That is, the companies should be the ones that must prove to the authorities that the purchase or acquisition of another company is competitive for the market, and not vice versa.”
“It is very difficult for the authorities to find documentation proving that the acquired companies intend to become market competitors before they are actually acquired,” he added.
Asked about the Chilean market, the expert concluded that: “Although Chile is a small country, it can still implement pro-competitive and anti-discriminatory measures in digital markets”.
MIPP Chile 2024