ZWeR 2026, 103
Advancing Competition Policy in the Digital Gatekeeper Era – A Tribute to Heike Schweitzer
This contribution examines Heike Schweitzer’s role as a competition policy analyst and adviser in the formative phase of European competition policy towards digital platforms. It situates her work in this context and develops a conceptual framework that captures the challenges of analysis under conditions of uncertainty and dynamic market developments. Through a selective analysis of four key reports, the article reconstructs central analytical approaches and policy proposals, identifies characteristic features of a “Heike Schweitzer approach”, and assesses its influence on subsequent regulatory developments, in particular the Digital Markets Act and section 19a of the German Competition Act.
Contents
- I. Introduction
- II. Setting the Stage: Competition Policy Analysis and Advice on Digital Platforms in the 2010s
- III. The Role of a Competition Policy Analyst and Adviser in the Face of Disruptive and Dynamic Developments
- 1. The Dynamic Analytical Triad: Observing, Understanding, and Concluding
- 1.1 First Step: Observing
- 1.2 Second Step: Understanding
- 1.3 Third Step: Concluding
- 2. A Further Complexity of the Task: The Interplay between the Analytical Steps and Factors
- IV. Spotlight on four Reports
- 1. Building Blocks: Schweitzer/Fetzer/Peitz (2015/2016)
- 1.1 Point of Departure: Competition Law as an Element of a Digital Competitive Order
- 1.2 Market Definition: Free Services, Multi-Sidedness, and the Limits of the SSNIP Test
- 1.3 Market Power: Network Effects, Data Advantages, and Contestability
- 1.4 Abuse Control in Digital Markets
- 2. Modernising Abuse Control in Digital Markets: Schweitzer/Haucap/Kerber/Welker (2018)
- 2.1 Relative Market Power and Contestability in Digital Markets
- 2.2 Towards New Legal Instruments
- 3. Analytical Assessment and EU-Level Governance: the Special Advisers’ Report (2019)
- 3.1 Diagnosis of “Sticky” Market Power
- 3.2 Reflections on Market Definition and Market Power
- 3.3 Platforms as “Regulators”
- 3.4 Self-Preferencing and Enforcement
- 3.5 Impact on the DMA
- 4. Concrete Reform Proposals: Kommission Wettbewerbsrecht 4.0 (September 2019)
- 4.1 EU Platform Regulation
- 4.2 Self-Preferencing, Data Portability, and Interoperability
- 4.3 Impact on German Competition Law Reform (Section 19a of the Competition Act)
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- V. The Heike Schweitzer Approach
- VI. Heike Schweitzer’s Perspective on the German Section 19a Tool and the EU’s DMA
- 1. Schweitzer’s View on the German Section 19a Tool
- 1.1 Concentration and Power Dynamics: Successful Platform Services as Nuclei of Digital Ecosystems
- 1.2 Deficits of Abuse Procedures under Article 102 TFEU and Equivalent Domestic Provisions
- 1.3 Synthesis
- 2. Schweitzer’s View on the EU’s Digital Markets Act
- 2.1 Market-Failure-Oriented Analysis as a Basis for Assessment
- 2.2 Fairness as a Competition-Policy Concept to Be Rationalized within the DMA
- 2.3 The DMA as a Qualified Solution to the Shortcomings of Traditional Competition Law
- 2.4 Critique of the Concept of the DMA
- VII. Conclusion
- *
- *)Department of Law, University of Mannheim, and Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (MaCCI)
- **
- **)Department of Economics Law, University of Mannheim, and Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (MaCCI)The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (CRC TR 224, project B05).
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