Cooperation agreements establishing the possibility of an exchange of information between competition authorities are in general based on two hypotheses. First, they assume that the cooperating competition authorities will independently decide which cases they will investigate. Second, with respect to the cases on which cooperation is actually going to take place, it is assumed that the requested competition authority might help the requesting competition authority through the transmission of information, which the latter would not have been able to gather given the limited territorial reach of its investigatory powers and which is relevant to its investigation of the case, for which it gets the cooperation of the requested competition authority. The digital sector is one where coordination of cases between the competition authorities (as opposed to cooperation on uncoordinated cases) would be most useful. Indeed, digital platforms frequently operate simultaneously in most jurisdictions and apply the same governance rules with the same effects on their complementors or users. Yet many competition authorities have, independently of one another, opened investigations of the same practices by the same platforms (such as, for example, the compulsory use of in-app payment systems for transactions). Furthermore, the scope for helpful exchange of information concerning such cases is relatively limited as the practices are public. Enhanced co-operation mechanisms such as cross-appointments between authorities as well as joint decisions or mutual recognition of decisions or the designation in some cases of a lead competition authority would allow competition authorities in a number of countries to avoid having to face the cost of large staff of digital specialists doing the same analysis as their colleagues in other jurisdictions and could contribute to a more effective enforcement of antitrust and competition law.
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