An Empirical Study On The Legal Issues Of Monopoly Under The Dual Role Of E-Commerce Platforms

Driven by the development of network information technology and the advancement of digital technology,e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Tmall have emerged and become leaders in the market.These e-commerce companies generally adopt a platform-based operation model and deeply integrate the platform with the enterprise.Based on this relationship,the e-commerce platforms in this article refer to the e-commerce platform companies operating on each platform.In the operation of the platform,these e-commerce platforms combine platform self-operation with third-party operators to operate,which greatly enrich the supply of goods or services on the platforms.However,they have the potential to trigger certain monopoly legal risks: on the one hand,the e-commerce platforms are the operator of the platforms,and on the other hand,they are also the retailers who sell goods or services on the platforms,so they essentially have a dual role.E-commerce platform giants can collect and analyze the data of third-party operators and users through their managerial role,which can be used to improve self-operated business activities and expand market share,thereby strengthening market dominance and possibly harming third-party operators on the platform,and it may damage the legitimate interests of third-party operators on the platform and the normal market competition order.This article chooses the European Commission’s antitrust investigation on Amazon as the entry point,combined with the empirical cases of our country such as JD.com and Tmall,and points out that the core of the reality and potential monopoly legal issues under the dual role of e-commerce platforms is that such e-commerce platforms in order to further expand the competitiveness of the platform,grab high profits so as to abuse there dominant market position,and the can perform differentiated abuses in different competitive relationships based on dual role.This summarizes three key issues that must be resolved in this monopoly law: the definition of the relevant market under the dual role of the e-commerce platform,the identification of the dominant market position under the dual role of the e-commerce platform,and the judgment on the illegality of abuse of market dominance under the dual role of e-commerce platforms.Different from traditional markets,e-commerce platforms have the typical characteristics of internet platforms,such as bilateral market characteristics,crossnetwork externalities,lock-in effects,etc.These characteristics cause the traditional market definition methods to have certain application dilemmas in defining the relevant markets of e-commerce platforms.This article combines internal and external experience and the characteristics of e-commerce platforms,and after examining different market competition relationships under dual role,the relevant markets are defined as online retail platform service markets and online retail based on the role of its platform operating manager and self-operated retailer respectively.In the determination of market dominance,this article proposes that when determining the market dominance under the identity of the e-commerce platform operator,the market share standard should be revised to strengthen the consideration of the platform dependence of third-party operators on the platform,and combine the management and the managed factors,the platform’s control over big data and the ability to control the related market comprehensively examine the market dominance under this role.In addition,with regard to the determination of the market dominance under the role of self-operated retailer,the article pointed out that the role of market share should be weakened,and attention should be paid to the transmission effect of the dominance under the role of business managers.In specific investigations,market behavior standards can be used to make judgments,and counterfactual deductions can be used to reinforce the determination results.In addition,the article believes that it is not appropriate to introduce the theory of necessary facilities into the market dominance determination of e-commerce platforms,but for e-commerce platforms that do not have a dominant market position but still have strong control over users,the article suggests that the dominant position theory can be used to prevent and regulate them.Regarding the determination of the illegality of the abuse of market dominance by e-commerce platforms,the article examines the difficulties in determining the illegality of abuse under dual role,and based on the dual role of e-commerce platforms,conducts actual and possible abuses under their respective role.For example,e-commerce platforms under the role of operating manager generally adopt non-price monopoly behaviors such as self-preferential treatment and differential treatment,while ecommerce platforms under the role of self-operated retailer generally adopt price monopoly behaviors such as predatory pricing and dominant position transmission.The article concludes that the problem of dual role not only appears on ecommerce platforms,but also gradually appears on other platforms.It points out that in the future economic development,platform business models will be more complex,and platform identities will be more diverse.When platform giants expand the market by mastering massive amounts of data,their monopoly legal risks such as abuse of market dominance will become greater and greater,so this issue must be focused on.