Online platforms and pricing: Adapting abuse of dominance assessments to the economic reality of free products

Online platforms, which are at the forefront of today's economy, are subject to intensive competition law enforcement. However, the platform business model presents challenges for the application of competition law. Most notably, they appear to offer consumers a great number of their products for free. The explanation for most of these supposedly free products is offered by two-sided market theory: consumers may not be paying, but the ‘other’ side of the market is. This other side of the market often consists of advertisers, which pay the platform for access to the consumers’ information (to target advertisements) and attention (to show the advertisements). As many of these platforms are now potentially dominant, they come within the scope of competition law's abuse of dominance provision, including the doctrines of predatory and excessive pricing. These price-based theories need to adapt to the often price-less platform business model in order to prevent competition authorities from making both type I and type II enforcement errors. At the same time, competition law enforcement needs to consider—and at times give priority to—other branches of law that address abusive behaviour concerning free products. Through the use of case studies, this article therefore suggests ways in which abuse of dominance assessments can take into account the economic reality of free products.     

公诉权滥用与制约研究

对公诉权滥用的问题,我国学者进行过深入的研讨,但大多把视角落在将应诉而作不诉处理的角度上。实际上在我国,公诉机关由于拥有司法权力,又基于其追诉的倾向,往往在权力的滥用上更多的是将可作不诉处理的案件一再提起公诉。故本文从过度追诉的角度论及公诉权的滥用,试图揭示这一问题的另一面。     

云南禁吸戒毒模式法制化研究

禁吸戒毒法制化建设是一项重要工作,通过立法的方式确定禁吸戒毒的目的、原则、方式、程序以及救济,对禁吸戒毒工作进行制度化建设,保证禁吸戒毒工作的规范和统一,这是我国依法治国方针在禁吸戒毒工作领域的具体体现,既是禁吸戒毒工作的重要依托,又是禁吸戒毒工作的开展依据.     

Restoring Faith: Resolving the Roman Catholic Church’s Sexual Scandals Through Restorative Justice (Working Paper I)

Two years ago, Independent Academic Research Studies, a UK based international network, started a research and implementation project to explore the potential of restorative justice to help resolve sexual offending cases involving children and young people. One aspect of this project is the use of restorative justice with sexual offending cases that occurred within the Catholic Church. The purpose of this article is to report on the main findings of the first stage of the project, based on desk research into existing or past international projects dealing with the matter. The aim, however, is not to provide a literature review of the main arguments surrounding the topic, but rather a critical overview of the restorative programs and research projects that have been implemented to test the notion’s application in sexual offending cases. The results of these programs will be contrasted with notorious cases that have been processed through the traditional criminal justice system. Therefore, this article is the first in a series on how restorative justice could be applied to help resolve the sexual scandals in the Catholic Church.     

The detection of deception with the reality monitoring approach: a review of the empirical evidence

One of the verbal approaches to the detection of deceit is based on research on human memory that tries to identify the characteristics that differentiate between internal and external memories (reality monitoring). This approach has attempted to extrapolate the contributions of reality monitoring (RM) research to the deception area. In this paper, we have attempted to review all available studies conducted in several countries in order to yield some general conclusions concerning the discriminative power of this approach. Regarding individual criteria, the empirical results are not very encouraging: few criteria discriminate significantly across studies, and there are several variables that moderate their effect. Some of the contradictory findings may have emerged because of differences in the operationalizations and procedures used across individual studies. However, more promising results have been reported in recent studies, and the approach as a whole appears to discriminate above chance level, reaching accuracy rates that are similar to those of criteria-based content analysis (CBCA). Some suggestions for future research are made.     

Forensic analysis of carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) by HPLC--statistics and extreme CDT values

Background

Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) is the most specific serum marker of chronic alcohol abuse so far. There is little knowledge about extreme CDT values of >20% and the more >30% CDT.

Methods

Serum CDT/transferrin ratios from 19,236 serum samples sent to our laboratory for routine CDT analysis were determined by HPLC. About 75% of these serum samples were from traffic or employment medicine investigations. A CDT value frequency histogram was computed and extreme CDT values were clinically validated.

Results

Fourteen thousand four hundred and sixty-one CDT results were normal (≤1.7%) and 4775 increased (1.8–36.9% CDT). Most frequent normal and increased results were 0.9% CDT (n = 1964) and 1.8% CDT (n = 356). CA. 70% of the pathological results were between 1.8% and 5.0% CDT, ca. 88% between 1.8% and 10.0% CDT, and 98% between 1.8% and 20.0%. CDT values >20.0% appeared in 79 cases and results >30.0% in two cases (33.8% and 36.9%). In each case of CDT values >20%, chronic alcohol abuse was the underlying cause as confirmed by anamnestic exploration.

Conclusions

CDT/transferrin ratios are usually <20%. Higher values can appear in rare cases. CDT results >30% can be due to alcohol abuse but should be considered as remarkable single observations. Visualization of the transferrin isoform patterns by HPLC allows the detection of pathological transferrin isoform patterns and of genetic transferrin variants. This is essential for a reliable interpretation of (extreme) CDT values. CDT analysis by immunoassays without physico-chemical confirmatory analysis is no longer acceptable.     

云南警官学院开展“禁毒执法多媒体培训项目”实训教学的思考

云南警官学院以“禁毒执法多媒体培训项目（CBT）”培训点的设立为契机，大力开展在校各公安专业学员和学生、执法人员的实训教学工作，取得了良好的教学效果，培训人员的禁毒专业素质和实践能力得到了进一步的提高。下～步工作中，要加强实训教学的领导与组织，将培训项目设立为单独的实训课程，加强实训成效的跟踪和分析、制定实训教学的规章制度。     

奇虎诉腾讯滥用市场支配地位纠纷上诉案二审判决的评析

自2008年《反垄断法》生效以来,"奇虎诉腾讯滥用市场支配地位一案"是最高人民法院依据《反垄断法》审理的第一起案件,该案的审理过程和判决结果都引发了理论界和实务界的广泛探讨。以二审判决书为主要分析对象,并结合《反垄断法》的规定和反垄断案件分析的一般思路,研究了最高人民法院对《反垄断法》具体条文的理解和适用的基本立场,为解决将来反垄断执法和私人诉讼中的一些原则性问题提供了参考。最高院在判决中对免费市场运用假定垄断者测试、确定相关地域市场等问题上有精彩论证,同时也留下了一些值得探讨的问题,例如,在市场份额对判定市场支配地位的作用、相关市场的界定是否属于反垄断案件的基本事实等重要问题上,法院存在模棱两可甚至自相矛盾的结论。     

Understanding the Elevated Risk of Partner Violence Against Aboriginal Women: A Comparison of Two Nationally Representative Surveys of Canada

Using two large-scale representative samples of Canada collected in 1999 and 2004, this study examined Aboriginal women’s elevated risk for violent victimization relative to non-Aboriginal women. Aboriginal women had about four times the odds of experiencing violence compared to non-Aboriginal women in both surveys. In general, there were fewer differences in the impact of risk factors between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women in the 2004 than the 1999 survey, resulting in risk factors accounting for less of Aboriginal women’s elevated odds of experiencing violence in the 2004 than the 1999 survey. In both surveys, controlling for all available risk factors did not fully account for Aboriginal women’s elevated odds of experiencing violence. Results were consistent with the theory that much of Aboriginal women’s elevated odds of violent victimization may be linked to colonization. Future research is needed to provide direct evidence of a connection between cultural loss and Aboriginal women’s elevated odds of violent victimization.