Dominance and Platform Integration: EU Antitrust Enforcement and the Meta (Facebook Marketplace) Case (2024)

This thesis examines how EU competition law addresses dominance and tying practices in digital platform markets through a legal-economic analysis of the European Commission’s November 2024 decision in the case against Meta Platforms, Inc. concerning Facebook Marketplace. The study is motivated by the central role of digital platforms in the EU economy and by the persistent enforcement challenge posed by multi-sided market dynamics, strong indirect network effects, and data-driven competitive advantages. Using only secondary sources like EU legal texts, Commission materials, case law, and peer-reviewed scholarship, the thesis investigates the research question: how does EU competition law address dominance and tying practices in digital platforms? The analysis first develops the doctrinal and economic framework of Article 102 TFEU, distinguishing exclusionary and exploitative abuses and explaining how tying and bundling can generate efficiencies while also enabling foreclosure. It then outlines the economic features that complicate market power assessments in platform markets, including network effects, data as a competitive asset, switching costs, and entry barriers, and evaluates how these features interact with the EU’s ex ante regulatory approach under the Digital Markets Act. The case study evaluates the Commission’s reasoning on market definition, dominance, tying, and data-related conditions, and situates the decision within the broader evolution of EU digital enforcement, including lessons from earlier platform-related precedents such as Microsoft and Google cases.