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Competition

Consumer-facing remedies

 

Competition authorities, consumer protection authorities and sectoral regulators are increasingly grappling with competition problems stemming from demand-side, rather than supply-side, features of markets.

In these markets, structural concerns, such as market concentration or barriers to entry, do not fully explain observed competition problems, including high prices or low service quality.  Demand-side factors, such as search and switching costs and behavioural biases, can sometimes play a significant role.

Agencies have implemented a variety of measures aimed at tackling these market failures in the course of market studies and consumer protection cases. These remedies have been targeted:

  • at informing customers about the options available.
  • developing tools such as price comparison websites to help customers make accurate comparisons,
  • removing switching impediments, or
  • actively prompting customers to act to get a better deal.

In June 2018, the OECD held a roundtable discussion that focused on the practical challenges of considering non-price effects, namely: identifying circumstances in which demand-side competition problems occur, determining when consumer-focused measures can be used (e.g. market studies, antitrust cases, ancillary measures in merger consent decisions), and designing as well as testing these measures

 

SEE ALSO

Full list of Competition Policy Roundtables

OECD Handbook on Competition Policy in the Digital Age 

 

SESSION INFORMATION

INVITED SPEAKERS

Amelia FLETCHER [Bio] ‌ 
Professor of Competition Policy, University of East Anglia

Stefan HUNT  
Head of Behavioural Economics & Data Science, Financial Conduct Authority

Adam LAND 
Senior Director, UK Competition and Markets Authority

PAPERS 

Background note by the UK CMA

Executive summary with key findings • Synthèse des points clés de la discussion 

Detailed summary of the discussion • Compte rendu detaillé de la discussion

BIAC

Consumers International

Croatia

Hungary

Iceland

Mexico

Netherlands

Peru

United States

VIDEOS

 
James Mancini, OECD

 
Adam Land, UK CMA


Amelia Fletcher, University of East Anglia

 
Stefan Hunt, Financial Conduct Authority 

For more videos, click here.

RELATED MATERIALS

OECD Handbook on Competition Policy in the Digital Age 

The Role of Demand-Side Remedies in Driving Effective Competition A Review for Which? by Amelia Fletcher

Market Studies and Competition

Market study methodologies for competition authorities (2017)

The role of market studies as a tool to promote competition (2016)

Remedies in Merger Cases (2011)

Market Studies (2008)

Remedies and Sanctions in Abuse of Dominance Cases (2006)

 

RELATED TOPICS

Abuse of dominance

Enforcement

Mergers 

Pro-competitive policy reforms

Digital Economy and Innovation

Access all policy roundtables on Mergers

Access the full list of Competition Policy Roundtables

Link to the  OECD Competition Home Page  

 

 

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