16. An analysis of the principal abusive practices

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the most important pricing and non-pricing practices, which together constitute the larger part of the anti-competitive and exploitative abuses of dominant firms. The types of conduct considered abusive of market power are similar under most competition regimes, and include both pricing and non-pricing practices. The ‘form-based’ analysis of abusive practices is progressively shifting to an ‘effects-based approach’. In the EU and the UK, both exclusionary and exploitative abuses may fall foul of the relevant competition law provisions. Exclusionary practices are usually considered abusive when they are likely to lead to ‘anticompetitive foreclosure’. The EU and UK law and practice in relation to all these potential abuses is and will remain aligned until the UK has formally left the EU.