Economic, political and socio-cultural welfare in media merger control : an analysis of the Belgian and Dutch competition authorities reviews of media mergers

Abstract: The premise of consumer welfare in competition law entails that National Competition Authorities (NCAs) weigh both economic and non-economic interests of consumers against those of producers. This contribution distinguishes between economic, socio-cultural and political welfare to evaluate whether NCAs examine a mergers impact against the width of consumer interest. A claim analysis is conducted of the NCAs formal decisions on eight selected cases of proposed media mergers. The analysis shows that, in recent years, these NCAs pay attention to non-economic interests of consumers, but... Mehr ...