Competition enforcement examines whether market power is used to exclude rivals, restrict choice or make one service difficult to avoid.
The Commission had concerns that tying Teams to Microsoft 365 and Office 365 gave Teams a distribution advantage and that limited interoperability made it harder for competing communication tools to compete. Microsoft offered suite versions without Teams, pricing differences, switching rights, interoperability and data-portability measures.
View caseThe Commission found that Meta’s binary model required Facebook and Instagram users either to consent to combining personal data for personalised advertising or pay for an ad-free service. It did not offer the less-personalised but otherwise equivalent service required by the Digital Markets Act.
View caseThe Commission found that Meta tied Facebook Marketplace to Facebook, giving the classified-ads service a distribution advantage that competitors could not match. It also found that Meta imposed unfair conditions allowing it to use advertising data generated by rival classified-ad providers for Marketplace’s benefit.
View caseThe CMA investigated whether Meta could use data from businesses advertising on its platforms to gain an unfair advantage when developing and improving products that competed with those businesses, including Facebook Marketplace.
View caseThe Commission had preliminary concerns that Amazon used non-public seller data for its own retail decisions and may have favoured its retail or logistics operations in access to the Buy Box and Prime. Amazon offered changes covering seller-data use, offer ranking, a second Buy Box offer and non-discriminatory Prime access.
View caseDuring its review of Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy, the CMA found repeated failures to comply with an initial enforcement order intended to keep the businesses separate while the merger was investigated. The failures included inadequate compliance reporting and changing a compliance officer without prior consent.
View caseWashington alleged that the Sold by Amazon programme replaced price competition between Amazon and participating third-party sellers with prices set by Amazon. The state said the programme could raise prices and steer customers towards Amazon’s own products.
View caseDuring the 2014 review of Facebook’s WhatsApp acquisition, Facebook told the Commission that reliable automated matching of Facebook and WhatsApp user identities could not be established. The Commission later found that technical matching was possible in 2014 and that relevant staff were aware of that possibility.
View caseThe Commission’s preliminary view was that clauses in Amazon’s publisher agreements could reduce incentives for competing e-book platforms to differentiate through price, release terms, promotions or business models. Amazon offered not to enforce or introduce the clauses and to let publishers terminate affected contracts.
View caseMicrosoft had committed to show Windows users in the EEA a screen offering a choice of web browsers. The Commission found that the screen was not displayed to approximately 15.3 million Windows 7 Service Pack 1 users between May 2011 and July 2012.
View caseThe European Commission imposed a periodic penalty after finding that Microsoft had not made interoperability information available to competitors on reasonable terms, as required by the 2004 antitrust decision. Microsoft challenged the amount before the General Court.
View caseThe Commission found that Microsoft abused its dominant position by refusing to supply and authorise the use of interoperability information needed by competing work-group server operating systems, and by tying Windows Media Player to Windows.
View caseAfter trial and appeal, liability remained for Microsoft’s unlawful maintenance of its operating-system monopoly through exclusionary conduct affecting middleware and browser competition. The 2002 final judgment resolved the federal and settling-state remedy proceedings.
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