The Assessment of Collective SMP : Lessons Learned from the First Round of Market Review

The legal uncertainty in the application of collective dominance by competition authorities under EU competition law raises an interesting question on how its equivalent concept, collective significant market power, should be employed by the national regulatory authorities in the context of the EU 2003 Regulatory Framework in the electronic communications sector. This article aims to shed some light on the implementation of collective significant market power from an empirical point of view. It will first examine the decisions of the European Commission that involve the assessment of collective significant market power under Article 7 of the Framework Directive in the first round of market review, and then provide a general overview of the application of collective significant market power based on these decisions, following a four-step analysis: (1) conduciveness to tactic coordination, (2) ability and incentives to detect deviation, (3) ability and incentive to retaliate, and (4) an SMP position