Managing Principals Aaron Yeater, Antoine Chapsal and Joshua White provide an overview of economic considerations for online platforms in the article, “European Union – Two-Sided Markets, Platforms and Network Effects.” The authors begin with an introduction to the economics of two-sided markets, and then discuss the questions of asymmetric pricing and market definition with digital platforms. They also discuss the special considerations required when assessing competition issues for digital platforms, and review how courts have weighed the benefits and costs from potentially anti-competitive restrictions on multisided markets, with a focus on the recent UK interchange fee decisions.
Associated People
Antoine Chapsal
Dr. Chapsal is an economist who specializes in empirical and theoretical industrial organization. He has provided economic expertise in a large number of high-profile cases involving mergers, cartels, information exchanges, abuses of dominant positions, regulation, intellectual property matters, and damages quantifications. Recent examples include the Lafarge/Holcim and Fnac/Darty mergers, as well as airfreight, cathode ray tube, and elevator cartel cases. Dr. Chapsal has also assisted various firms in designing optimized pricing strategies and dealing with policy issues. His reports have been presented to the competition authorities of France, Germany, Austria, and South Africa; the European Commission; the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf; and the Court of Appeals, Conseil d’Etat, Conseil constitutionnel, and Tribunal of Commerce of Paris.
Prior to joining Analysis Group, Dr. Chapsal founded MAPP, a Paris- and Brussels-based economic consultancy, which was acquired by KPMG in 2018. Previously, he worked in a US competition economics consultancy. Dr. Chapsal regularly publishes articles on competition economics, on subjects ranging from the econometric analysis of cartels to geographic market delineation and exclusionary strategies. He is an affiliated professor at the Sciences Po Department of Economics and a member of the CESifo academic research network.
Joshua White
Mr White is a consulting and testifying economist who specialises in applying microeconomics and sophisticated econometric modelling to complex litigation and merger-related questions, primarily in matters involving the health care, financial services and technology industries. He has supported clients in various jurisdictions and industries in follow-on competition damages litigation, assessing overcharge, upstream and downstream pass-on and volume effects. He has served as a testifying expert in the UK Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber), the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal and the Amsterdam District Court on competition cases.
Mr White has supported high-profile companies with complex merger reviews across multiple jurisdictions, including in the Veolia/Suez, LVMH/Tiffany, Sika/MBCC and Eutelsat/OneWeb mergers. He has also provided evidence to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the European Commission (EC), including on behalf of clients involved in cartel investigations, abuse of dominance investigations and mergers. Mr White has also provided support to European financial and competition regulators in coordinated conduct investigations.
Mr White has extensive experience addressing competition and intellectual property (IP) issues in matters related to cutting-edge pharmaceutical products and FRAND licensing questions. As part of this work, he has supported a number of scientific and technical experts in front of courts and regulatory bodies. He also regularly supports pharmaceutical clients on competition issues around market access, pricing, denigration and competition from generic manufacturers.
Mr White has worked in a number of jurisdictions, including the UK, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Belgium and the US. His writing has been published in an array of journals, including the Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, the Competition Law Journal and the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement, and he regularly speaks at international competition law and policy conferences.