EU: Competition authorities scrutinize “Geo-Blocking”

Contracts between suppliers and distributors that actively prevent consumers from buying goods and digital content online across the European Union’s borders could face closer antitrust inspection, the bloc’s competition watchdog said Friday.

The European Commission, the bloc’s antitrust authority, released the first findings of its probe into the e-commerce sector with a paper that focused on geo-blocking, a practice to discriminate via price or the range of goods a company offers based on a customer’s location. The EU said geo-blocking was “widespread” in Europe.

The EU announced last March it would open a sweeping investigation into the e-commerce sector to establish whether some firms are raising contractual or other barriers to limit how consumers can shop online across national borders inside the EU.

The EU’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager has said she may open antitrust cases into individual companies based on the findings, especially where they are suspected of abusing their dominant market position to restrict trade, in violation of EU law.

On Friday, she noted that some of the geo-blocking activity resulted from restrictions in agreements between suppliers and distributors.

“Where geo-blocking occurs due to agreements, we need to take a close look whether there is anti-competitive behavior, which can be addressed by EU competition tools,” she said.

As part of the investigation, the EU has questioned online marketplaces; Internet streaming services; content producers; manufacturers that sell goods online; as well as broadcasters. It has received replies from more than 1,400 companies across the bloc’s 28 countries.

Full Content: The Wall Street Journal

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