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Competition law & e-commerce: change is coming?

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28 April 2021 / Dr Jing Wang
Issue: 7930 / Categories: Features , Competition , Commercial , Technology
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Restoring competition in the digital market is essential for enhancing consumers’ confidence in e-commerce, says Dr Jing Wang
  • The Competition and Markets Authority’s decision on ComparetheMarket.com’s breach of anti-competitive activities.
  • Wide ‘most-favoured nation’ (MFN) clauses and narrow MFN clauses.

‘Price comparison websites are excellent for consumers. They promote competition between providers, offer choice for customers, and make it easier for consumers to find the best bargains’: Michael Grenfell, the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) executive director for enforcement.

However, price comparison websites can also go in the opposite direction, which is what we witnessed in the case of dominant price website ComparetheMarket.com (part of the BGL Group). The UK CMA fined BGL (BGL (Holdings) Limited, BGL Group Ltd, BISL Ltd and Compare the Market Ltd) over £17.9m in November last year for breaching UK competition law by price-fixing and restricting competition in a thoroughly intriguing fashion. Instead of promoting competition in the insurance quote markets, ComparetheMarket.com was found to have restricted competition by imposing wide ‘most-favoured nation’ (MFN) clauses on insurance companies seeking to

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