EGDF submits response on a public consultation on Horizontal agreements between companies
The more dominant the role of these gatekeeper platforms becomes, the more crucial it becomes to facilitate the exchange of information on actual concrete practices gatekeeper platforms are imposing on companies operating in their platforms. The more transparent the rules are, the fairer the competition on platforms becomes. Consequently, the European competition rules should specifically allow and encourage information exchange on the market restrictions set by gatekeeper platforms. The information exchange should be clearly allowed even if the information would be not publicly available, confidential, commercially sensitive and not historical (e.g. based on experiences of individual companies on how the rules are enforced).
Furthermore, EGDF warmly welcomes steps taken in the Data Governance Act to introduce more legal certainty through data sharing services that European SMEs could use for pooling both personal and non-personal data. Data sharing services would create an alternative way for European SMEs to enrich their data in a controlled environment without becoming part of a global corporate group. However, this kind of data sharing can only work if it is supported by a solid competition law framework allowing and encouraging data sharing between competitors.
The full joint position paper can be downloaded from here: https://www.egdf.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/202110-Horizontal-Block-Exemption-Competition-Regulations.pdf.pdf
For more information EGDF approach on
- How to regulate platforms read our policy paper on platform regulation
- Business-to-business data sharing read our policy papers on B2B data sharing