Ecosystem Mergers and Unilateral Effects? A Framework for Assessing the Ecosystem Theory of Harm

This paper provides a framework and practical guidance for assessing ecosystem theories of harm in merger control. Several recent merger investigations relating to digital ecosystems have raised novel, and fundamentally similar, economic issues. Yet these cases have at times been viewed as horizontal, and at other times as non-horizontal, notwithstanding the close similarities in the economic issues they raise. We explain that the underlying theory of harm in these cases is fundamentally differe