(Previous installments here)
First, we have seen that there are “spillover” effects from retail
MFNs for other platforms and channels. In a context of seller-imposed retail
prices, or “agency” model, a single
wide MFN clause between a seller and a platform effectively prevents any other
platform from displaying prices lower than the MFN’d price (e.g. cheaper hotel
room rates, lower insurance premiums, etc.), thus creating a floor – or minimum
- price.
By contrast, agency pricing as such is not necessarily conducive to rate parity, or price
fixing, since it could well be in the seller’s interest to display different prices
on different platforms. Thus, for instance, the mobile game Hundreds is priced CHF5.00 on iTunes and CHF4.75 on Google Play, while the price of the racing
game Impossible Road is the same on both platforms.
Actually, competition authorities in the UK and Germany have
expressed serious concerns exactly because
retail MFN clauses prevent expansion and entry strategies by platforms based on
“selective” lower hotel prices and insurance premiums. In
fact, due to the spillover effects of wide MFNs, an online retailer cannot use
its ability to compete on commissions (or margins) in order to enter the market
and try to achieve the critical mass necessary for the platform to survive and, possibly, to thrive. Instead,
still under agency but without retail
MFNs, the same retailer could pursue a strategy of lowering the commission rate
applied to the seller with the expectation that the seller would then display
lower prices on the more cost-effective platform.
(To be continued)