A Study Of Antitrust Regulation Of Start-Ups Mergers And Acquisitions In Digital Markets

As the digital economy continues to grow,platform companies have emerged as a major driver of social development.Due to the network effect,many business fields are controlled by a few platform enterprises that are established early and strong.In this context,start-ups have gradually grown and expanded with their own advantages and formed unique competition and business models.In order to expand their market power,start-up M&A is a relatively common form of M&A in the digital economy.In essence,M&A in the digital market is a concentration of operators,and the antitrust law,which aims to oppose monopolistic behavior and protect competition,plays a role in maintaining free competition in the market,protecting consumer welfare,encouraging and promoting innovation,and preventing the occurrence of monopolistic behavior through prior intervention.In contrast to general mergers and acquisitions,mergers and acquisitions of start-ups in the digital market,especially those aimed at eliminating potential competition,can cause long-term damage to consumer welfare and innovation,and should be taken seriously.The special characteristics of digital technology and the digital economy also make the antitrust regulation of M&A by start-ups face four realistic dilemmas: First,the focus of competition in the digital market is no longer on single product or market competition,but on ecosystem competition,resulting in the concealment of M&A by start-ups and more complex analysis.Second,it is difficult for indicator factors such as turnover and market share to effectively reflect the operator’s true market control,leading to a failure of the concentration declaration trigger mechanism.Third,the dynamic competitive nature of digital markets and the special nature of start-up M&A make it difficult to assess the competitive damage of start-up M&A behavior,especially the selection of welfare criteria,uncertainty in quality assessment,innovation damage trade-offs and other non-price factors of one-sided understanding,increasing the difficulty of law enforcement review judgment and decision making.Fourth,the characteristics of large volume,wide impact,technicality,and mixed relationships make the time limit for M&A cases uncertain,which not only increases the time cost and unpredictability of market transactions,but also reduces the making and utility of conditional decisions and produces the negative impact of concentration regulation.The new Anti-monopoly Law partially responds to the problems of China’s operator concentration system and indicates the future optimization path.However,the new Anti-monopoly Law still has the problems of vague threshold criteria for concentration declaration,unclear concept of relevant antitrust regulation and insufficient flexibility of application in the regulation of mergers and acquisitions in digital market,which need further improvement.Therefore,when regulating anti monopoly mergers and acquisitions of digital market startups,based on the analysis and research of extraterritorial regulatory theories and typical cases,combined with the current development situation in China,an effective plan is attempted to be constructed.First,flexibility in market definition.Starting from the essence of market definition,correctly grasp the connotation of market competition under the digital ecosystem,adopt comprehensive market definition analysis ideas and methodological adaptations.Secondly,establish a declaration monitoring system.On the one hand,establish diversified declaration standards such as turnover,market value,transaction volume,and user scale.On the other hand,relying on digital technology,law enforcement agencies play an active role in law enforcement.Third,establish a scientific competition damage assessment system.Debug the content of competition evaluation with dynamic counterfactual,merger content,post merger behavior,and other aspects as key points,especially focusing on the analysis of innovation motivation and ability,and improving the efficiency defense system of merger behavior.Fourth,to establish a reasonable antitrust remedy mechanism for operator concentration.Flexible use of behavioral remedies to restrict the external behavior of M&A parties,prudent application of structural remedies,as well as the establishment of an ex-post investigation mechanism.Fifth,improve the antitrust ex ante prevention system.Strengthen the construction of competition compliance,guide enterprises to self-examine and self-correct,and protect and encourage competition.