Big Data has quickly penetrated most business areas in the past decade, posing challenges for the effectiveness of existing data protection rules, on one hand, but also for different aspects of competition law and its enforcement, on the other hand. Access to customer contact data or customer preferences has impacted on competitive parameters, raising completely new questions of competition law, e.g. in the context of data portability or digital cartels. However, the more fundamental issue arises if and how data protection compliance can or should be a parameter in the assessment of competition authorities around the world, being a well-known fact that, in principle, competitive assessment is bound only by welfare considerations.
Personal data has multiple impacts on all pillars of competition law – anti competitive agreements, abuse of dominance and merger control. While abuse of dominance and merger control relate to competitive harm via the access to greater customer data, the classic price fixing cartels are being replaced by seemingly irretraceable, big data-based price fixing algorithms. We shall be covering the aspects of the Data Protection in the light of Competition law covering the interest in merger review, fundamental right of data protection and the abuse of dominance along with the legal frameworks covering the aspects under the African law.