»Abusive Conduct on Digital Markets«: In the recent past, digital business models have increasingly become the focus of antitrust control. This has revealed that antitrust law, which is influenced by the understanding of bilateral business relationships, is confronted with various challenges. Following the classical differentiation between exploitative and exclusionary conduct, the author examines whether the provisions on abuse under German and European antitrust law are capable of dealing with the economic findings on multi-sided markets as well as with the features that characterize digital markets in general, and how conduct on digital markets that raises competition concerns can be integrated into the casuistic classification of conduct. A special focus is placed on the misuse of conditions, tying and refusal to deal; special attention is also paid to the problem of leveraging prevalent on digital markets.
