Research On Anti-monopoly Law Regulation Of Platform Mergers And Acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions are one of the common ways for large platforms to achieve scale growth.Through a large number of non-horizontal mergers,platform enterprises are developing towards the direction of platform ecosystems.In the platform ecosystem,the purpose of platform mergers and acquisitions is not only to consolidate data to gain market power,but also to enhance the synergies between platforms through data circulation,thereby further releasing the value of data.These behaviors may have regulatory needs due to the multiple value goals of antimonopoly law,but due to the network effects and two-sided market characteristics of platforms,anti-monopoly law in the industrial age faces difficulties in regulation.Specifically,in terms of declaration,the existing turnover standards cannot include active killer mergers in the scope of review;in terms of review,not only are the relevant market definition methods difficult to apply under the free business model,but also the original single-platform perspective may underestimate the market power of the platform as platform enterprises gradually develop towards the direction of platform ecosystems;in terms of relief,behavioral relief is difficult to supervise,and the application of review clauses needs to be configured to respond to the dynamic competition environment,but the proportion of application of review clauses in practice is insufficient.The possible regulatory path for platform mergers and acquisitions from the perspective of platform ecosystem is: in terms of declaration,anti-monopoly law needs to design a multi-level declaration standard;in terms of review,it is possible to consider improving the SSNIP test method with time as a variable,and conduct anti-competitive effect evaluation from the perspective of platform ecosystem,focusing on market power transmission,killer mergers,data blocking and other situations;in terms of relief,it is not only necessary to face up to the regulatory role of structural relief in the platform economy,but also to appropriately increase the proportion of application of review clauses.