Price parity clauses : has the Commission let slip the watchdogs of war?

Abstract

While the proliferation of online markets has presented competition authorities with a string of challenges of diverse nature, the price parity phenomenon depicts particularly well the Commission's 'fight-chaos-with-chaos' approach to digital economy. Indeed, the EU watchdog's passive attitude towards the multiple enquiries into most-favoured-nation clausesby different national trustbusters across the Old Continent risks going down in universal history of antitrust infamy. With the awareness that rivers of ink have already been poured over the subject, this paper adopts a brand new stance by looking on its opportunity side. In the light of the timid open-mindedness recently shown by the European Court of Justice as regards the object-effect dichotomy in Groupement des Cartes Bancairesand Maxima Latvijajudgements (which seem to steer away from Pierre Fabre's sternness), I will discuss different national solutions with a view to vindicating not only a more consistent but also an unprejudiced effects-based approach that should transport analogue EU law enforcement to the digital era.