Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Viscount Colville of Culross

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Grand Committee

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 48 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and I support dropping Clause 29 from the Bill.

These amendments are also about speeding up the process of stopping anti-competitive behaviour by the tech companies. It is essential that no hostages to fortune are given for tech company lawyers to drag out the process, as many noble Lords said, particularly in the first group.

I want noble Lords to bear in mind that, for every big tech company, every week they succeed in delaying a decision against their anti-competitive practices is one in which they earn millions of pounds, while their competitors are left struggling in so many areas. Speed is of the essence.

As a former newspaper journalist, my most immediate field of concern is local and regional media, which are suffering from the anti-competitive behaviour of the tech companies. There has been a collapse in local newspapers over the past decade and in the next three years this will turn in to a major exodus, with huge areas of the country becoming local news deserts with nobody reporting on local councils, courts and other important civic activities.

The Digital Markets Taskforce study on digital advertising found that the tech companies had used network effects and economies of scale to dominate the market. It concluded that the “more vibrant competition” in the market would improve

“the bargaining power of online news publishers”,

which would

“improve the health and sustainability of journalism in the UK”.

In turn, this would

“contribute positively to the effectiveness and integrity of our democracy”.

On top of this, much of the news content generated by these media companies is used by tech platforms either for free or for little remuneration.

I have long campaigned for the final offer mechanism to be available to the CMA as a powerful deterrent against anti-competitive behaviour by the tech companies, but surely all deterrents are more effective if there is a realistic chance that they will be deployed, and in a short time. Once the CR requirements on an SMS have been imposed, breached and reported, the CMA should be in a good position to know whether the designated SMS company will take the long or short road to a solution. Amendment 48 would allow the CMA to issue an enforcement order, decide whether that has been breached and investigate the breach, if it feels that it will lead to a satisfactory resolution to the company’s behaviour. However, if, earlier in the process, the solution is not going to be possible, the regulator needs the power to bring forward its ultimate deterrent. No SMS will want to have the final offer mechanism imposed on it, and I understand that the CMA is equally reluctant to deploy it, but the more pressing the threat the more likely it is that the DMU investigation will be brought to a quick and effective resolution.

I know that these companies will fight tooth and nail to preserve their massive profits resulting from the anti-competitive behaviours. It might be useful for the Committee if I give just one really shocking example of how effective these delaying actions can be. The salutary lesson is the story of a nascent shopping comparison site, Foundem, based in London and founded in 2005, which was doing very well until 2008, when it was massively deprioritised on Google Search, at about the same time that Google Shopping, the search engine’s own shopping comparison site, was set up. Foundem issued a complaint to the EU Commission in 2009 about anti-competitive behaviour by Google. The Commission set up an investigation and, three years later, after many legal arguments, Google was given a preliminary assessment—similar, I imagine, to an SMS designation. Rules were then laid down for the company to follow, but within six months market tests revealed that it was not tackling the anti-competitive behaviour. The response was dragged out by Google until 2016, when it was given a supplementary statement of objectives, which were also heavily fought by the search engine.

Finally, on 27 June 2017, the EU imposed a record €2.4 billion fine on Google for violating EU competition law. However, the company appealed, first to the EU General Court and then to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Final judgment on the case has yet to be issued. Meanwhile, Foundem exists in order to fight the case, but it suspended all its services eight years ago. This is a 15-year David-versus-Goliath battle with a company, some of whose activities CMA might have to designate. This legislation must be drafted to ensure that the process brings results, and fast, if small digital competitors are to have a chance of surviving.

Already the CMA estimates that the designation process will not become operational until June 2025. I know that the hope is to set up a designation process at the same time as negotiating the conduct requirements, but that could still take up to nine months to implement on the SMSs. Meanwhile, many of the smaller media outlets I talked about earlier will have gone under.

The same arguments for legal delay by tech companies must apply to Clause 29, which introduces the concept of countervailing benefits. I do not understand the need for Clause 29. Clearly, the balance between consumer benefit and anti-competitive behaviour will have been looked at as part of the SMS designation process, which is clearly set out in the Bill. Does the Minister think that our world-class regulator will ignore these considerations in the initial process? If they will be considered then, why introduce this clause for consideration all over again? I have already explained the need for speed in the CMA’s process. This exemption can only play into the hands of the tech companies to draw out the processes and hold up the prospect of many more companies like the start-up shopping search website Foundem being littered by the digital wayside. I ask the Government to seriously consider taking Clause 29 out of the Bill.

However, I support the fallback in Amendment 40, to have the word “indispensable” inserted into the clause. Your Lordships’ Committee has heard that “indispensable” was taken out on Report in the other place. The Minister has said that the simple threshold of “benefit” is already established in Section 9 of the Competition Act 1998 and Section 134(7) of the Enterprise Act. However, the former talks of an “indispensable benefit” and the latter just of a “benefit”. The Minister says that the two thresholds are the same; clearly, they are not.

The new definition of the grounds on which anti-competitive conduct can be permitted states that

“those benefits could not be realised without the conduct”.

It requires only that anti-competitive conduct be necessary, rather than indispensable, which means that anti-competitive behaviour is the only way to achieve the benefit. Surely, if that is the case, it would be better for the consumer, in whose name the Bill is being enacted, to have the highest possible threshold of benefit.

The Explanatory Notes open up avenues for further legal wrangling by lawyers, as they say the definition of benefit will be similar to that in the Competition Act and the Enterprise Act. As the two Acts use “benefit” in different ways, that will surely lead to confusion. Is the use of the word “similar” because it is not possible to say “same”, in the light of the divergent terms that appear in these two Acts? Without it, there seems to be room for legal ambiguity. At the very least, there should be an explanation in the Bill that establishes “benefits” as having the same definition as in the Competition Act.

I know that all noble Lords want the Bill to be implemented and effective with all possible speed, to make this country a world leader in digital start-ups. However, it needs to be amended to avoid legal confusion and unnecessary delay by world players that have everything to gain from protecting their dominant position in markets.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, on the pretext that he would not be here, my noble friend passed responsibility for this group on to me. As noble Lords can see, he is “not” here. This is a long group and my noble friend managed to attach his name to every amendment in it, with the exception of the two proposed by the Minister, so I apologise if I give a slightly long speech on his behalf.

I spoke at Second Reading, but I was not here for the first day in Committee, as I was in the Chamber speaking to the main business there. My noble friend has tabled Amendments 38 and 41, on countervailing benefits; Amendment 43, on goods and services; Amendments 49, 50 and 51, on final offers; and Amendment 107, on injunctions. He also supports Amendments 36, 39 and 40 from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, which seek to restore the status quo of Clause 29.

In Clause 29, as we know, there is an overarching provision that enables SMS designated firms to push back on regulatory decisions through a countervailing benefits exemption. This is, in our opinion, a potential legal loophole for big tech to challenge conduct requirements through lengthy, tactical legal challenges. We just heard an example of how similar measures can be employed. This is a significant loophole, not a small one, and it would require the CMA to close a conduct investigation into a breach of conduct requirement when an SMS firm is able to prove that the anti-competitive conduct in question produces benefits which supposedly outweigh the harms, and that the conduct is “proportionate”—that word again—to the realisation of those benefits. It has the potential to tie up CMA resources and frustrate the intent of the legislation. It is critical that these provisions do not inadvertently give designated firms immunity from CMA decisions. We heard from other speakers that the scale of resources at the command of these companies far outweighs the resources that the CMA would be capable of summoning. That inevitably leads to the ability to clog things up.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, explained, the Government added amendments to the Bill on Report in the Commons that could further weaken the ability of the DMU to push back against spurious claims of consumer benefit. The removal of the term “indispensable” may weaken the regulator’s ability to rebuff these claims as, by analogy with competition law, the use of the term “indispensable” is likely to require a high standard for firms to meet; therefore, the standard is now lower.