Google CEO Eric Schmidt testified yesterday before eight members of the Antitrust, Competition and Consumer Rights Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary claiming that Google had fully complied with U.S. anti-trust laws.
The written testimony can be found here.
The Wikileaks crusade for transparency has even managed to envelop the competition sector. Check out the article on the Wikileaks Release of a U. S. Diplomatic Cable About the Oracle-Sun Merger Deal.
The diplomatic cable claims that U. S. government pressured the European Union to approve the Oracle-Sun merger deal.
I have finally written a reply to my previous post on Authors Guild v. Google Inc.: Some Questions on the Ruling and the Proposed Settlement. It can be found here.
There are some who may complain that there is a certain amount of neglect for this Blog, for which I apologise. It has become increasingly difficult to take out time to write new posts with the gruelling new College schedule.
At the very outset, it should be mentioned that the speedy clearance for the proposal of combination of The Walt Disney Company (South Asia) and UTV Software Communications Limited is encouraging, despite the apparent staff shortage at the CCI. However, while I find no reason as of now to oppose the merger, the reasoning of the Commission on a certain ground is questionable and does lay some credence to the criticisms leveled against the Commission on the reasoning of its orders.
The Commission seems to have relied heavily on the fact that Disney is primarily an English broadcasting medium whereas UTV is a Hindi broadcasting medium. Such reasoning is unsound and questionable. The language of communication in any merger of broadcasting or media companies is irrelevant. What is relevant is the impact which the merger would have on the entertainment industry, and consequently, the audience as a whole. Assuming hypothetically that the merger would result in dominant position in the media entertainment market for Disney, the language of broadcasting would not matter in case it tried to abuse its dominance. If Disney had to do so, it would do it by asserting itself in the industry as a whole, not in the Hindi or English segment specifically. In other words, the ‘relevant market’ to be determined should not be based on the language of broadcasting but rather the entire broadcasting industry as a whole.
The Order can be found here.
I have written a post titled “Authors Guild v. Google Inc. : Some Questions on the Ruling on the Proposed Settlement” for the Indian Law and Technology Blog. In this post, I have raised certain questions related to the judgement and the status of free websites under competition law. I hope to find some answers in another post.
Please click here
to view the post.
Following a previous post, I have provided links to certain articles below by various authors who have written on network neutrality and its relationship with competition and Anti – Trust. For all readers who are interested in learning more about network neutrality and its effect on competition, do read the following articles. These articles have been written by authors who are both for and against network neutrality.
Christopher S. Yoo, Beyond Network Neutrality
Christopher S. Yoo, Network Neutrality and the Economics of Congestion
Barbara Van Schewick, Towards an Economic Framework for Network Neutrality Regulation
The link below is one which I just had to share !! It is an argument by Alan Greenspan (of all people. Typical !!) on why the “entire antitrust system must be opened for review” (read: Antitrust legislation should be repealed).
It’s certainly not ethical to comment upon the matter which is presently sub-judice (even if you’re not a party to the suit), but honestly, I just couldn’t help it!! 😛 Partly because I was skeptical of the recent complaint which has been filed before CCI against Apple Inc. for
its allegedly abusive market practices of allowing its iPhone to be bundled with only two service providers, namely, Aircel and Bharti Airtel. However, while the audacity of an individual to go up against a Transnational Corporation is to be admired, I must say, with a comparatively high degree of confidence, that the complaint shall most probably be dismissed on the following grounds:
1. According to reports by Bar & Bench and Legallyindia, the complaint has been filed under Section 4 of the Competition Act. (Abuse of Dominant position). However, there is no evidence to show that Apple Inc. even has a dominant position in the relevant market (India). Let alone abuse it. According to data on Fonearena.com for the year 2009 (unfortunately, the latest I could find), and quote:
“Over 100 million mobile phones were sold in India in 2009 according to a research firm IDC India. What’s surprising is that Nokia still has a lion’s share of the mobile sales at 54.1%. Samsung Mobiles has 9.7 % share and LG has 6.4 %…. There were more than 28 new handset brands which started selling handsets in 2009 and these new players account for over 12.3% of handset sales which is quite significant…..The local players account for 17.5 % of sales now. These include Micromax, Karbonn Mobiles, Spice Mobiles Ltd, Videocon Industries Ltd and Lava International Ltd.”
Therefore, effectively, it is only Nokia according to this data which stands any chance of abusing its dominant position. Assuming there has been a change in these numbers in the year 2010 till date, there is no reason to believe that the change could have been substantial enough so as to suddenly allow Apple Inc. to dominate the market as per its whims and fancies.
2. An argument may be raised that the relevant market in this case would in fact, not be the regular handset market, but rather, the narrower Smartphone market. However, it is doubtful whether the Commission shall accept such an argument. But to create no prejudices, a good authoritative lawyer could convince the Commission on this point.
3. What the Complainant has alleged in his/her Complaint is in fact a case of “tie-in arrangements”, “exclusive supply agreements” and “refusal to deal” under Section 3. Therefore, one fails to understand exactly why the complainant has alleged a violation of Section 4. Advice to Complainant: Get yourself a better lawyer!!
4. Arguendo, assuming that the complaint had alleged the violation of Section 3, it is extremely doubtful that it is violation of Section 3 as it is Apple itself which has designed the iPhone and all its applications and services. Apple Inc. controls the entire process of the manufacturing and distribution of the iPhone, and all applications can only be accessed and downloaded via the iStore because they are designed by Apple Inc. itself. Those that are designed by individuals other than Apple must also be added to the iStore database as Apple products run on a separate platform (Macintosh), Apple has traditionally always kept a “closed system”, as it is called in tech jargon to try and maintain the exclusivity of its products. (In fact, this is the primary reason why one finds far fewer virus programs attacking Mac PC’s and Smartphone’s, another shot in the arm for Apple).
5. Lastly, in both the above cases, Apple Inc. has not in any manner prevented its competitors from continuing their business. There is no evidence to show that any of its policies results in denial of market access in any manner to any other handset manufacturer which would not qualify as regular competition. In fact, market indicators clearly show that presently, there exists robust and healthy competition in the Mobile Market in India.
As regards the iPad, I shall reserve my opinion as I was unable to find any conclusive survey on the market share of Apple in the Tablet market in India.
Indian Competition and Anti-Trust Blog 