This article reviews the competition case law and the approach of utility regulation to address excessive prices. It considers the potential challenges of applying a reasonable prices framework to access to digital platforms’ data, due to the difficulties in assessing an appropriate return on digital platforms’ investments in R&D. Following this conclusion, the article proposes to assess whether lighter forms of intervention may be sufficient to address the market failures identified and to introduce access to data if these are not likely to succeed.
Keywords: reasonable prices; price regulation; digital platforms; access to data; data regulation