The Research On Essential Facilities Doctrine Into Anti-Monopoly Regulation Of Platforms

As a kind of market organization mode,trading platform or platform market moves from the living environment within our reach to the virtual one.The rise of Internet platform(hereinafter referred to as platform)brings the social economy into a new round of innovation and development stage.However,with the iterative updating of network information technology and the sinking and broadening of digital application scenarios,the meaning contained in the platform has undergone a qualitative change.It has gradually grown from a simple virtual transaction intermediary to an important hub structure in the national economy integrating information data aggregation,economic factor production,social resource allocation and behavioral rule formulation.It comes between the political power of the country and the power of the market.Since platforms can reshape the economic pattern of the whole society and closely connect economic industries,national politics and social culture together,in today’s world,no matter what stage a country is at in economic development,the importance of developing digital economy and cultivating platform market for its social and economic development has become an self-evident fact.After decades of development of Chinese platform economy,there has been fierce competition among platform enterprises.From the iteration of information technology and the transformation of business model,to the multi-dimensional participation of platform capital and the whole industry in the construction of national economy,platform economic ecosphere with the core of many super-large platforms which have competitive relationship despite different function positioning has been formed.Due to the scale effect of the platform and the commercial structure permeated by the whole industrial chain,the competition relationship between the bilateral market of the platform is very complicated.The blocking of the platform side restricts access and even the blocking of various means hinders the flow of factors and hinders innovation,and the damage result of market competition distortion will be transmitted to the public interests of the society.Due to the long-term lack of effective supervision over the operation and expansion of the platform,the platform has developed from a private entity to a rule-maker who grasps important resources for national economic development.Its maintenance of monopoly position and disorderly expansion result in distortion of competition,which leads to social and economic losses.The necessary facilities of the platform are embodied the data elements and platform.In order to correct the competition order,it is necessary to reform the anti-monopoly system,establish rules with "abuse of foundation" as the underlying logic,and set up competitive obligations for qualified platform operators,so as to promote innovation and protect the legitimate rights of platform stakeholders.After the formation of the scale,the major platforms have shown various monopolistic behaviors,such as shielding potential competitors,malicious incompatibility with technical means,realizing "one of two" fixed trading for operators within the platform,self-preferential treatment when competing with operators within the platform,and raising the entry cost by overpricing important data.All these behaviors have destroyed the competition order of the industry.It also damages the legitimate rights and interests of operators and consumers within the platform.This paper believes that the reason why platform poses challenges in many issues is that it is different from the existing anti-monopoly rules that take "market" as the starting point of analysis and even the underlying logic.Based on scale and network effects,large platforms gradually form strong penetration effects,economic influence and social dominance,which are ultimately reflected in the necessary facilities of the platform.To effectively regulate this kind of monopolistic behavior,it is necessary to set up corresponding competitive obligations for different platforms,and construct new platform anti-monopoly rules within the framework of necessary facilities theory.Starting from the nature of dynamic competition of platforms,it is possible to promote competition by empowering anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies to develop corresponding identification and evaluation mechanism of necessary facilities for platforms,entrusting competition obligations to platforms that meet the requirements of necessary facilities.