Soon after the announcement, will the monopoly be strangled?

Spring Festival is not a stop, drop fast, you think Valentine's Day can be happy together? Recently, easy to use the car to report to the relevant departments, drop fast two merged without the relevant provisions of the Declaration, suspected monopoly. Request for investigation and prohibit two mergers.

Subsequent responses are not to be discussed. Today I just want to discuss two mergers is a monopoly? Will it be because the two families can not be together.

My answer is no.

Judgment is based on the process and result of 3Q monopoly litigation. This is the most typical case involving monopoly in China's internet. I was fortunate enough to have been in the courtroom for the only time in my life to go to court. The more than 10-hour trial gave me a lot of legal knowledge, and I remember the backache back.

I remember at that time the court mainly debated two questions: 1, whether QQ has a dominant market position of 2, whether there is abuse of market dominance of the behavior. In layman's terms, the first is to judge whether a monopoly has been formed, and then to judge if there is any monopolistic behavior.

The same problem can be used for dripping fast. First, do they have a dominant market position?

The question of monopoly two must have been considered before the merger. When the merger was announced, 36 Krypton asked Liu the question. She believes that the two markets are mobile travel, in addition to taxis, there are car, bus, driving and carpool and so on a pile. From this point of view, there are a lot of strong competitors (such as Uber) in this field. Even a taxi, with software to take a taxi, there are still a large number of roadside taxi users to be developed.

Of course, is not monopoly still need legal cognizance, Liu said not count. The first thing the law finds is what the market is. Then look at the market share, and then judge whether the dominant position.

I am not clear about how to define the market. When Tencent should Sue also cited e-mail, micro-blog examples, they are the Internet communication tools, are competitors QQ. But in the final judgment, the court did not think so, but defined the market in the Instant messaging market.

In the mobile-end instant Messaging market, the verdict found that in August 2012, Tencent's monthly market share of mobile instant communications in mainland China was more than 90% per cent in terms of effective monthly use time.

Therefore, if you go to court, the "market" where the drip drops quickly may not be as big as the Liu said. is limited in the taxi field is also possible, so add up, the new company is likely to have a huge market share, more than the "monopoly law" and other provisions of the Declaration, I believe that easy to report is based on these.

But the question is, can two of these market share be identified as having a dominant market position?

Not。

3Q's verdict did not presume Tencent's monopoly, but wrote, "Nevertheless, market share is only a crude and potentially misleading indicator of market dominance." ”

The Supreme Court made it clear that the presumption of monopoly based on market share was not absolute and could be overturned.

Clearly in law, high market share does not of course imply dominance of the market. The Supreme Court has therefore also proposed that, in addition to market share, it is also necessary to take into consideration the competitive status of the relevant market, the ability of the sued operator to control the price, quantity or other conditions of the transaction, the financial and technical conditions of the operator, the degree of dependence of the operator on the transaction, and the ease of entry of other operators into the relevant market. , the author considers and analyzes whether the appellant has a dominant position in the market.

Among these, the most important consideration is the difficulty of other operators entering the relevant market. The 3Q trial, my feeling is that the presiding judge is very familiar with the Internet, asked the question is very professional. In the corresponding Internet market competition particularity, the court is not unfamiliar. Internet competition is highly dynamic, the relevant market boundaries are far less clear than the traditional areas, may be a moment of mutual touch can not touch the company becomes a competitor. There are many examples of video, payment, and social networking in this area. Because this time can not overestimate the role of market share, but to pay more attention to market access is there any obstacles.

Therefore, after the QQ was identified 90% of the market share, the court still proposed that the instant communication field of competition is increasingly diversified, innovation is more active, is in the period of vigorous development, market competition is more adequate. Tencent has no market dominance, and there is no evidence to support this conclusion.

The corresponding taxi industry is also the case, is now in the industry's most intense competition, the fastest pace of development. So, even if the drop fast in the taxi market, the super high market share, the dominant position may not be identified.

By the way, similar standards of determination have precedents in the United States, where the United States is more tolerant of free competition. In the United States v. Sophie Enterprise (U.s.v.syufy Enterprises) case, the judge proposed that the essence of competition is to distinguish between the victory and defeat, is to eliminate the failure of the party.

Another important issue for the court to determine is whether there are abuses of market dominance.

The 3Q trial, 3,601 side of the lawsuit is based on QQ two Select a bundle behavior. Finally how to determine that I do not remember, because the verdict of more than 100 pages is too long. Vaguely remember, the traditional industry in the price below the cost of production bundled sales, to achieve control of prices, exclusion of competition, can be identified as a monopolistic behavior. But because the Internet product is free, so many traditional industry methods do not apply, the court also debated for a long time.

Of course to drop fast, and money is closely related. Although the software use is free, but also can have the subsidy! The subsidy is not a control price to exclude competition, I also eat not very accurate. But if it is not found to have a dominant position in the market, the matter may not be discussed.

In that judgment, the Supreme Court said that "the focus of antitrust law is not on the interests of individual operators, but on whether the healthy market competition mechanism is distorted or damaged." ”

So we should also follow the two mergers will not make the market healthier as a higher starting point.

On the eye, before the subsidy hit the most ferocious is dripping fast. Long-term, reckless subsidies are certainly bad for the industry. After the merger, the incentives to burn money should weaken. And then I don't know.

On the motivation, two mergers must be to make the market healthier. After the merger of Youku potatoes, copyright prices became more rational over time. However, the world is difficult to anticipate, drop fast easy to outside the mobile travel market there are so many powerful competitors to stare at, such as Baidu Robin Li also said in the earnings report, Uber China's trading volume is growing rapidly. What will happen in the future can not be said, after the merger of the drip fast also can't relax Ah!

These are some of my thoughts about the 3Q war. I am not a law master, following. Monopoly is certainly not going to end up just because I said so. As long as access to the legal process, mobile travel market will have a big change. 3Q trial lasted at least 2 years, if the court to accept this lawsuit, really open a lawsuit, the merger was postponed two years that drop fast pay the price is big, the lawsuit won again how, what dishes are cool, does not fit and also meaningful?

For easy to say, as long as this thing into the legal process, delayed two mergers it won. As long as the time is long enough, it may not matter at all. So remind entrepreneurs, the law is also an important means of competition in the company Oh!

Finally, no matter how things follow. These years the mobile travel market has to be magnificent. Lu Zhengyao, the traditional leasing giant, CEO of Shenzhou, said

"Competition is not a start until we come in," he said. Now that we're in, the competition is just beginning. Everyone must fight, this battle is not small.

Look back a few years later, today it is just a small wave in the big wave!