The Taiwan Fair Trade Commission (the "TFTC") released its preliminary draft of the White Paper on Competition Policy in the Digital Economy (the “White Paper”) in early March 2022, and subsequently held several industry exchange forums to solicit comments thereon from stakeholders in the private and public sectors as well as the academia. After taking into account the opinions collected from various parties, the TFTC finalized the White Paper and released the official version thereof on December 20, 2022.

 

The finalized White Paper addresses 14 competition issues relating to the digital economy, which are also covered in the draft White Paper, including the challenges the digital economy poses to traditional market definitions and assessment of market power, platform operators' practices of self-preferencing, tying, predatory pricing/inducement of low price, price discrimination, most-favored-customer clauses (MFNs), resale price maintenance (RPM) and imposing restrictions relating to online sales channels, data privacy and market competition, bargaining between platforms and news media, killer acquisitions, algorithms, and online false advertising. In the finalized White Paper, the TFTC presents its future enforcement position and response measures through its analyses of each such issue and by reference to enforcement precedents in Taiwan and other jurisdictions.

 

In addition, the finalized White Paper also made suggestions on the directions of amending the current laws and regulations, including, in the short term, reviewing the Guidelines Regarding the Definition of Relevant Markets, and, in the long term, expanding the scope of the laws on concerted actions to cover vertical collusion, amending the laws to strengthen the TFTC's authority on conducting market survey, establishing handling guidelines relating to the digital economy, reviewing and amending the handling guidelines relating to advertisements, and expanding the scope of the handling guidelines relating to online advertisements to address issues of KOL/influencer marketing. The White Paper also stated that the TFTC will gradually integrate information technology into the process of case analysis and also leverage talents in this field to strengthen the TFTC's enforcement capability in the digital economy.

 

The TFTC stated that the finalized White Paper offers a comprehensive and holistic analysis of the competition issues arising from the digital economy, as well as the TFTC's corresponding enforcement directions and recommendations. The TFTC has also released a summarized version of the White Paper, a presentation slide deck and an easy guide to the White Paper for the public to read and understand the content of the White Paper. Nevertheless, since many issues of the digital economy are constantly evolving, the White Paper only represents the TFTC's enforcement positions at this point in time and will be adjusted on a rolling basis as the relevant issues evolve with time.

 

If you have any questions about the White Paper, please do not hesitate to contact us.