Application of the Concept of Significant Market Power in Electronic Communications

Abstract

The concept of significant market power is of paramount importance in regulating electronic communications markets. The notion of significant market power (SMP) is almost equivalent to the competition law concept of dominance, however, SMP requires a more pro-active regulatory approach since its aim is not primarily to ex post deal with competitive restraints as general antitrust rules do, but to establish a competitive market from an originally monopolistic situation in a network based economy where competitive bottlenecks are characteristic. In order to achieve a competitive market an active and continuous regulatory contribution is needed in order to help to open up those bottlenecks for competition, until sustainable competition is achieved on the relevant market. On December 1, 2005 some 80 experts and professionals from all over Europe gathered in the headquarters of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for an international conference on Application of the concept of significant market power in electronic communications. The conference was organized by the Centre for Infocommunication Laws in the Institute of Legal Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (CIL), in cooperation with two well known German research and consulting centres, the Wissenschaftliches Institut fur Infrastrukturund Kommunikationsdienste (WIK), and the Institut fur Informations-, Telekommunikations-, und Medienrecht (ITM) of the Westfalische Wilhelms-University of Munster, Germany. The conference aimed at providing a systematic overview of the various legal and economic issues regarding the application of significant market power (in the following SMP) concept introduced by the new EC framework