Anti-monopoly Regulation Of Killer Acquisitions Of Platform Enterprises

In the field of platform economy,platform enterprises,driven by the motivation to eliminate potential competition,acquire the assets of target enterprises and expand the business field of platform enterprises,generally carry out stifling mergers and acquisitions of target enterprises.The stifl ing merger and acquisition of target enterprises by platform enterprises is different from the merger and acquisition between traditional enterprises.The target enterprises are mostly start-ups or emerging platforms.The merger and acquisition methods are more aggressive and diversified than the traditional ones,and often terminate the business of target enterprises after the merger and acquisition is completed.Such stifle mergers and acquisitions strengthen the market power of large platform companies,which will not only harm competition and innovation,but also reduce consumer welfare and worsen the living environment of small and medium-sized platform companies.In this regard,the anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies of various countries attach great importance to it and carry out legislation practice.At present,under the institutional framework of the anti-monopoly law,the identification,analysis and regulation of stifling mergers and acquisitions of platform enterprises are faced with the failure of the current turnover declaration standard,the related market is difficult to define,the competition impact assessment is difficult to operate,the anti-monopoly law enforcement agency is difficult to provide evidence and low efficiency,and the lack of supervision after the reality.In view of the existing problems,we should learn from the beneficial experience of overseas anti-monopoly regulation of platform enterprise stifling Mergers and Acquisitions,and optimize the relevant system based on the three main stages of anti-monopoly regulation of Mergers and Acquisitions.Specifically,in the pre-declaration stage,turnover standards should be appropriately lowered,turnover calculation standards and methods should be clarified,and transaction volume standards should be introduced on this basis to increase the merger notification obligations of super platform enterprises and large platform enterprises,so as to avoid stifling mergers and acquisitions to escape anti-monopoly supervision.In the pre-review stage,in addition to transferring the burden of proof to super platform enterprises and large platform enterprises to deal with the difficulty of proof review,the competition impact assessment should be optimized by introducing potential competition theory,using information technology such as big data,cloud computing and artificial intelligence,and focusing on the evaluation of non-price factors such as innovation and quality.And according to the type of the target enterprise,the motivation of the merger and acquisition,the business field of the merger and acquisition transaction classification review,so as to improve the quality and efficiency of the review.At the stage of post-investigation,we should strengthen post-investigation supervision by clarifying the strict burden of proof,determining the time limit of investigation and intervention,and expanding investigation methods,so as to achieve the certainty of anti-monopoly law enforcement.Only through the continuous optimization of our anti-monopoly regulation system can we get rid of the anti-monopoly regulation dilemma of killer acquisitions,and find a way to curb the unordered expansion of the platform capital,hinder the competition and innovation.