#13 FRAND or Foul? The Hidden Economics of App Stores w/ Dr. Jorge Padilla

In this episode, we delve into the concept of fairness in competition policy, particularly in the context of app stores and the application of FRAND conditions. Jorge Padilla discusses the theoretical underpinnings of fairness in economics and competition law, the challenges of implementing FRAND conditions in app stores, and the regulatory perspectives on pricing within the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The conversation highlights the complexities of ensuring fair distribution of value between gatekeepers and app developers, and the implications for consumers and market dynamics.If you're interested in reading Jorge's and Kadambari Prasad, 'Taking Article 6(12) DMA Seriously: FRAND Access Prices for App Stores': https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5261312Throughout the discussion, we touched upon a few papers and tales, to be found in the references below (if you want to skip to them directly):- 1:08, The Law and Economics of Article 102 TFEU, co-authored alongside Robert O'Donoghue: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-law-and-economics-of-article-102-tfeu-9781509940868/.- 3:18, The Shapley value as a means to translate fairness into economics: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_memoranda/2008/RM670.pdf.- 10:11, FRAND conditions applied to price of access to Microsoft's APIs in 2004: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:032:0023:0028:EN:PDF.- 14:09, Google's latest compliance report notes compliance with the FRAND obligation under the DMA (pages 160-162): https://storage.googleapis.com/transparencyreport/report-downloads/pdf-report-bb_2024-3-7_2025-3-6_en_v1.pdf.- 17:51, Isaiah Berlin's dichotomy on foxes and hedgehogs: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hqz8.To learn more about Dr. Alba Ribera Martínez and her research, we invite you to visit her website: https://www.albariberamartinez.com.She also writes, from time to time, in her newsletter, the DMA Agora, about the latest developments surrounding the European regulation: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7344021393451184128.