Competition and consumer policy in digital markets

3. From identification to action: towards more joint approaches between the two policies

This section examines how a joint approach can generate enhanced benefits for consumers in areas where both markets and consumers are affected. Consumer agency is used as the central lens, emphasising informed and autonomous decision making as a point of convergence between competition and consumer policy. It reviews current practices and initiatives through which authorities have operationalised synergies and considers how consumer agency can be systematically integrated into both domains. The discussion concludes by highlighting remedies as a key area where combined insights can deliver more effective and consumer-oriented outcomes.

3.1. Existing practices to approach policy overlaps

Multiple jurisdictions have set up initiatives and strategies that enhance joint approaches among consumer, competition and even data protection regulators, whether they are both under the same or different enforcement authorities. These initiatives, which consider policy overlaps in certain principles, objectives and conduct, recognise the value in aligning policies that enhance market efficiency and aim at integrating, at different levels of depth, consumer interests into decision making, including consumer agency aspects, while preventing regulatory gaps or overlaps that could affect implementation and enforcement.

3.1.1. Institutional design

Institutional design of the authorities in charge of enforcing competition and consumer law is the primary factor shaping the extent to which competition and consumer policies can reinforce one another. In 16 of the OECD jurisdictions, there are authorities with dual and even multiple mandates, including competition and consumer protection enforcement.1

Past OECD work has explored benefits and costs of integrating competition and consumer policy within a single authority (2014[70]). It concluded that the appropriate institutional setting depends on country-specific factors, and that the critical factor is ensuring mechanisms are in place to exploit economies of scope in policy design and enforcement, whether functions are integrated or split across authorities. Benefits of integration include more flexibility in combining the two policy instruments within a single portfolio of action, developing and sharing of expertise across the two areas, and gains in terms of visibility and understanding from the wider community. Costs of integration stem from the differing nature of tasks, procedures, and substantive standards involved in enforcement, which can limit the economies of scope achievable through integration. Additional risks include the diversion of attention and resources from one policy area to the other, as well as the multi-level nature of consumer policy administration, which often makes centralisation more difficult. While the rise of digitalisation has revived this debate, evidence on whether one institutional set up is optimal remains scarce, focussing on co-ordinated enforcement rather than on whether the powers lie in a single or multiple authorities.

Dual-mandate authorities may incorporate the synergies between the two policies in their governance structure. Because they can decide to rely on shared tools and mandates, as well as on unified prioritisation exercises, information sharing may become simpler and decision making processes, such as deciding whether to pursue a case under one or both enforcement paths, may become easier. However, this does not come without a challenge. Balancing enforcement priorities within the same authority with limited resources may become complex and allocating more resources to one may come at the expense of the other (UNCTAD, 2025[28]). Given differences in legal frameworks and standards, a common understanding of the same issue may not be straightforward (Tonazzi, 2025[2]) and less interaction is seen at later stages.

When authorities enforcing the two laws are different, co-operation protocols govern co-ordination between the two authorities. Examples include Brazil, where co-ordination takes place between the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) and the National Consumer Secretariat (Senacon). These mechanisms may rank from informal engagement to procedures agreed on under Memoranda of Understanding, as well as explicit provisions in laws, some of which have been in place for a long time. In the context of digital markets, however, these have been reinforced and new strategies implemented to oversee matters holistically.

3.1.2. Advocacy initiatives

Advocacy activities2 allow authorities to start examining issues in digital markets within a holistic framework that encompasses both competition and consumer protection considerations. As advocacy initiatives avoid the procedural and substantive complexities of enforcement and reduce the need for harmonising standards across both regimes, they serve as an effective entry point for co-operation between distinct authorities, or for strengthening internal synergies within a dual‑mandate institution. Recent examples of authorities exploring complementarities between both policy areas in advocacy activities include:

• Joint market studies or market studies, discussion papers or similar tools that cover consumer and competition concerns in a unified analytical framework (see Box 5).

• Public hearings and workshops, such as those conducted by the US FTC (e.g. Consumer Injuries and Benefits in the Data-Driven Economy workshop in 20263 and the 2018-2019 hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century).4

• Joint institutional responses through advocacy initiatives. For example, in 2021, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF), CADE, Senacon and the data protection authority, Agência Nacional de Proteção de Dados (ANPD) in Brazil, issued a joint recommendation as a response to a privacy policy update by WhatsApp in the Brazilian market aiming at protecting consumers by ensuring that the policy update complied with the different regimes.5

• Working groups to analyse certain digital issues or overall assess dynamics of digital markets within a specific timeframe. E.g. Japan’s Study Group on Competition Policy in Digital Markets (that issued a report on algorithmic competition (JFTC, 2021[68])) and FTC’s Surveillance Pricing Study that started in 2024 to examine how companies track consumer behaviours to inform surveillance pricing and examine their potential impact on privacy, competition and consumer protection.6

• Digital regulation co-ordination bodies such as the UK’s Digital Regulation Co-operation Forum (DRCF) that was established in 2020 and brings together four UK regulators with responsibilities for digital regulation: the Competition and Markets Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office and the telecommunications regulator, Ofcom.7 Similar bodies have been created in Australia (Digital Platform Regulators Forum, DP-REG), Canada (Canadian Digital Regulators Forum, CDRF), Ireland (Digital Regulators Group, DRG) and the Netherlands (Digital Regulation Co-operation Platform, SDT), with an International Network for Digital Regulation Co-operation (INDRC) that was launched in 2023 to connect these bodies.

  More broadly, the OECD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the International Competition Network (ICN) and the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN) have focussed their efforts to generate spaces of interaction between enforcers and policymakers in both areas. In 2020, the ICN launched a project on “Competition law enforcement at the intersection between competition, consumer protection and privacy” that resulted in a report summarising ICN member actions and policy responses to key issues in the intersection. As mentioned in the introduction of this note, the OECD has held multiple roundtables related to the topic, including joint discussions and workshops between the Competition Committee and the Committee on Consumer Policy.8 Both policy communities have also interacted most recently during the Ninth UN Conference to Review All Aspects of the Set of Multilaterally Agreed Equitable Principles and Rules for the Control of Restrictive Business Practices where synergies between both policies, with a focus on digital markets, were discussed (UNCTAD, 2025[28]).

Box 5. Examples of market studies exploring both competition and consumer issues in digital markets

Australia

In March 2025, the ACCC finalised a five-year Digital Platform Services Inquiry (DPSI) preceded by its Digital Platforms Inquiry between 2017 and 2019 and the Digital Advertising Services Inquiry between 2020 and 2021. These inquiries examined competition and consumer protection issues in a range of digital markets,1 identifying potential and emerging risks and harms, and leading to recommendations on policy and legislative reform. The ACCC produced ten reports in the framework of the DPSI including a final one summarising previous findings and recommendations, as well as actions already taken towards their implementation.

Canada

The Competition Bureau in Canada regularly conducts research, including through public consultations, to better understand different digital markets and practices in digital environments, as well as how they might affect competition. In the past couple of years, it has produced discussion papers on Artificial Intelligence and Competition (2024)² and Algorithmic Pricing and Competition (2025). In both papers, the Bureau discussed competition issues related to unilateral and co-ordinated conduct, considerations arising in merger review and risks regarding deceptive marketing practices, identifying potential impacts on markets and consumers and how to factor these into competition analysis.

Italy

In 2020, the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM), the Communications Regulator (AGCOM) and the Data Protection Authority published a jointly conducted inquiry on the big data sector. Among others, the inquiry examined data, competition and consumer protection issues associated with the collection and use of big data and identified synergies that could arise between enforcement in the different areas, as well as between ex-ante and ex-post intervention. It concluded that consumer protection provisions are effective against some practices and that they are complementary to the tools available under competition law. The authorities issued diverse policy recommendations on how to tackle the issues raised by big data and committed to a permanent co-operation mechanism in relation to acting on and studying the impact of big data on businesses and consumers.

Singapore

The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) published in 2020 its market study on e-commerce platforms. The market study focussed on gaining an in-depth understanding of the business models and operating environment of e-commerce platforms and identifying potential competition and consumer issues which may arise from the proliferation of such e-commerce platforms. The CCCS issued recommendations on both policy areas, particularly focussed on measures to improve consumers’ trust in digital markets and raise awareness on anticompetitive and unfair trading practices that could arise in the sector.

1.Including online retail marketplaces, search services, web browsers, private messaging, social media, data services, generative AI, cloud services and online gaming.

1. The Bureau engaged in cross-governmental collaboration for the drafting of the paper, engaging with different sectoral regulators through the Canadian Digital Regulators Forum.

Sources: ICN (2022[23]), Summary of ICN member actions and policy responses to key intersection issues and next steps for the Project, https://internationalcompetitionnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Intersection-Project-survey-analysis-summary.pdf; ACCC (2025[71]), Digital platform services inquiry 2020-25 reports, https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/publications/serial-publications/digital-platform-services-inquiry-2020-25-reports; Competition Bureau Canada (2024[69]), Artificial intelligence and competition: Discussion Paper, https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/sites/default/files/documents/AICompetition-Discussion-Paper-240320-ver3-e.pdf; Competition Bureau Canada (2025[67]), Algorithmic pricing and competition: Discussion paper, https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/en/how-we-foster-competition/education-and-outreach/publications/algorithmic-pricing-and-competition-discussion-paper; AGCM (2020[72]), Big Data Sector Inquiry, https://en.agcm.it/dotcmsdoc/pressrelease/Italy%20Big%20Data%20Sector%20Inquiry%20-%20Summary.pdf; CCCS (2020[73]), E-commerce Platforms Market Study Findings and Recommendations, https://isomer-user-content.by.gov.sg/45/c224aa3d-fb94-474c-9df9-9a69bbf597c4/CCCS%20Ecommerce%20Platforms%20Market%20Study%20Report.pdf.

3.1.3. Enforcement activity

When it comes to enforcement, the interaction between the two regimes becomes more complex. Authorities must determine which legal framework is most suitable or whether both should apply. Co-ordination between competition and consumer protection authorities when they are institutionally separate may also be more difficult, as it requires navigating additional procedural hurdles and confidentiality constraints. Businesses also argue that these grey areas may reduce legal predictability, as businesses may find it difficult to comply with frameworks that are increasingly complex to implement, often across multiple jurisdictions (OECD, 2024[74]).

While certain practices require analytical input from both competition and consumer policy to adequately assess their full impact on consumers, a combined perspective may not always be available. However, clarifying whether a behaviour distorts consumer choice or fairness and whether it alters market structure, competitive dynamics, or long‑term welfare, may already shed a light at a case-prioritisation stage. Building on this, some enforcement interventions have already incorporated considerations from both areas. 9

Either when enforcement is conducted in parallel or when only one area was chosen to intervene, proceedings can still benefit from co-ordinated analysis or joint effort. Including behavioural considerations in the analysis of competition issues has recently been a way to introduce consumer considerations, such as the impact on consumer agency, into competition enforcement.10 However, unlike the case of advocacy initiatives, enforcement is still done in separate proceedings, particularly when mandates are held by different authorities and there are no examples of joint enforcement action yet11 (i.e. joint infringement decisions).

Box 6 provides an example of how intervention against the same practice by Facebook triggered different reactions across jurisdictions.

Box 6. Enforcement action against Meta’s practices

In 2019, in Germany, the Bundeskartellamt found that Meta had breached the German competition law by making access to its social network conditional on users accepting extensive data‑collection terms. The authority held that requiring users to consent to the combination of data from Facebook’s own services and from third‑party websites violated data protection rules and, simultaneously, constituted an exploitative abuse of dominance. In the Bundeskartellamt’s view, Facebook leveraged its dominant position to impose unfair terms on users, illustrating how conduct can raise concerns that lie at the intersection of competition, consumer and data protection policy.

Following the Bundeskartellamt’s decision, the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court referred questions to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) concerning how breaches of data protection rules should interact with competition law assessments. The ECJ clarified that competition authorities may consider compliance with other provisions when evaluating abusive conduct, provided they respect the duty of sincere co-operation and avoid undermining the competence of the relevant authorities. Subsequently, the German Federal Court of Justice confirmed the Bundeskartellamt’s approach, emphasising the link between consumer sovereignty and competition law enforcement. The Court held that Facebook’s conduct restricted users’ freedom of choice and right to self‑determination, rights protected under the German Constitution and that such restrictions could constitute exploitative abuse.

A comparable intervention emerged in 2018 in Italy when the AGCM intervened under its Consumer Code against Meta for pressuring users not to change default settings that allowed the sharing of personal data with third‑party websites. The AGCM found this to be an aggressive commercial practice that generated consumer detriment by misleading them into registering in the Facebook platform and automatically and without express and prior consent transmitting their data to third-party websites and apps for commercial purposes. Later, in 2024, the AGCM fined Meta for having breached the Consumer Code by engaging in unfair commercial practices for lack of transparency to users about the collection of their data for commercial purposes.

These examples illustrate how similar concerns may be addressed through different legal regimes depending on the institutional framework and policy tools available.

Sources: Bundeskartellamt Case B6-22/16 Facebook; Case C-252/21 Meta Platforms and Others, ECLI:EU:2023:537; Bundesgerichtshof, KVF 69/19 Facebook; AGCM Press Release: Facebook fined 10 million Euros by the ICA for unfair commercial practices for using its subscribers’ data for commercial purposes, https://en.agcm.it/en/media/press-releases/2018/12/facebook-fined-10-million-euros-by-the-ica-for-unfair-commercial-practices-for-using-its-subscribers%E2%80%99-data-for-commercial-purposes; AGCM Press Release: PS12566 - Italian Competition Authority: a sanction of EUR 3.5 million to Meta for unfair commercial practices, https://en.agcm.it/en/media/press-releases/2024/6/PS12566; OECD (2023[12]), Applying Behavioural Insights to Consumer and Competition Policy and Enforcement, https://one.oecd.org/document/DSTI/CP(2023)6/en/pdf.

Finally, it is worth noticing that the growing interdependence between competition and consumer policy (de Elizalde, 2025[75]) has been progressively embedded in regulatory instruments that operate alongside traditional enforcement tools. These frameworks typically combine transparency obligations, restrictions on discriminatory or self-preferencing practices, data access and portability rights, and fairness requirements in ranking, intermediation and platform design. In doing so, they implicitly recognise that market structure, platform governance and user autonomy are structurally interconnected. The existence of such regulatory regimes does not eliminate the need for co-ordination between competition and consumer authorities. On the contrary, it reinforces it. Fragmented enforcement, i.e. where authorities operate in isolation, risks generating inconsistent obligations, duplicative compliance burdens, or interventions that address one dimension of harm while inadvertently weakening another (Pandey, 2025[76]).

3.2. Looking to the future: From parallel enforcement to integrated approaches

As discussed above, enforcement in the two areas still appears to take place separately. In practice, several factors may influence the decision to pursue a case under one enforcement route or the other. As a result, authorities often choose to proceed under one framework, or under both frameworks in parallel rather than through a joint approach. These factors can be summarised as:

• Scope and target: whether the intervention should target a specific set of consumers or a wider group. In competition law, intervention generally benefits more the consumers of dominant firms, at least as an immediate effect, as enforcement is linked to market power. However, as competition enforcement is focussed on market structure, its impact may be broader, with intervention having the ability to reshape market dynamics beyond a specific consumer group or individual transaction. Prohibitions in consumer law apply to all businesses, regardless of market power. This allows authorities to intervene for the benefit of any affected group of consumers, resulting in a more targeted protection although individual enforcement actions may have a more limited structural market impact.

• Legal threshold and complexity of the assessment: the two areas of enforcement are shaped by different enforcement standards (see for example (OECD, 2023[21]; UNCTAD, 2025[28])). Establishing competition infringements often requires a detailed market definition exercise, proof of dominance or substantial market power and an effects-based analysis. These steps are especially complex in digital environments due to considerations such as existence of multiple sides of the market, complex data dynamics and dynamic competition (OECD, 2022[77]). In contrast, in consumer law, many infringements operate as per se prohibitions or rely on simplified tests, making them generally easier and faster to enforce and typically subject to a lower evidentiary burden.

• Nature of infringement and requirements of proof: linked to the complexity of the assessment, in jurisdictions where exploitative conduct is not recognised as a standalone infringement, authorities must demonstrate exclusionary effects, adding another layer of analysis for competition intervention. Some of these practices can often be addressed without proving exclusion or market distortion through consumer law.

• Timing and resource implications: generally prompter intervention under consumer law given typically faster and more straightforward procedures can prevent greater harm to consumers before market structures are significantly affected by a business’ conduct. Competition law proceedings tend to be more resource-intensive, lengthy and costly for authorities, leading to intervention arriving later, when competition is often already distorted (UNCTAD, 2021[5]; Siciliani, Riefa and Gamper, 2019[78]).

• Availability of remedial action and deterrent effects: competition law sanctions have traditionally been higher, although several jurisdictions have recently raised or plan to raise the maximum penalties for breaches of consumer law to align more closely with those available under competition law (for example, Australia, the United Kingdom and the EU with its Omnibus Directive), potentially offering a greater deterrent effect. Remedies tend to be more flexible than in consumer law and may include structural or behavioural measures aimed at restoring market dynamics. In consumer enforcement, remedies are often more directly focussed on consumer redress and the cessation of harmful practices, such as injunctions, compliance orders and compensation, and may be quicker to implement. However, they are generally not designed to address structural market dynamics in the way that competition remedies can.

• Availability of private redress mechanisms: while private enforcement mechanisms exist in both areas,12 in competition enforcement they are relatively uncommon and more complex. Moreover, harm to consumers in some circumstances is indirect (through increased prices or reduced quantities or quality), thus requiring proving the overcharge. In contrast, consumer law frameworks often grant individuals direct rights to compensation, facilitating access to redress. Comparable collective actions are generally less developed or more difficult to pursue in competition law.

Overall, the comparison highlights that choosing the appropriate enforcement route is not merely a legal or procedural decision but a strategic one. It depends on the nature of the conduct, the type of harm at stake, the urgency of intervention and the institutional framework of the authority. This way of approaching decision making when there is overlap between the two policy areas leaves some room for an integrated perspective based on consumer agency considerations, which is particularly relevant in digital markets, where practices often produce both distortions of consumer choices and effects on competitive dynamics, making cross‑regime collaboration increasingly pertinent.

3.2.1. Integrating consumer agency into competition and consumer enforcement analysis

One way of linking consumer and competition considerations in enforcement, while acknowledging existing limitations for conducting actual joint enforcement action, is by integrating consumer agency into the analysis. In practice, both competition and consumer protection authorities already engage with elements of consumer agency, albeit often implicitly. This can be observed, for example, in the assessment of switching costs, default settings, or the transparency of ranking and recommendation systems, as well as in cases examining consumers’ response to certain behaviour, the effects of misleading or deceptive online choice architecture practices or the validity of consumer consent. In certain situations, however, making this dimension more explicit may improve the assessment. Identifying when such explicit consideration is warranted is therefore key. In those instances, and irrespective of the institutional set-up, closer co-operation between competition and consumer protection authorities may be particularly relevant.

If consumer agency is to function as a meaningful analytical parameter rather than a purely rhetorical concern, both competition and consumer protection authorities may benefit from incorporating it more explicitly into their enforcement frameworks, particularly when assessing digital markets. This does not require altering the objectives of either policy domain. Rather, it involves recognising autonomy as a condition that can influence how markets function and how existing legal standards are interpreted and applied (Namysłowska, 2025[79]).

From a competition law perspective, consumer agency could be treated as a factor relevant to the intensity of competitive constraints. When competition authorities assess dominance, foreclosure, exploitative conduct, or leveraging in digital environments, it may be useful to consider whether market conditions enable consumers to understand alternatives, compare offers and switch providers without undue friction. Reduced autonomy may, in certain contexts, signal weakened competitive pressure even where nominal choice exists (Fassiaux, 2023[80]). Accordingly, competition enforcement could more explicitly take into account empirical indicators such as effective transparency in ranking or recommendation systems; the practical complexity of switching or multi-homing; asymmetries of friction between sign-up and cancellation; and the extent to which data portability allows users to maintain functional continuity across services. Where design features systematically dampen switching, exploit inertia, or create forms of data-based lock-in, these elements may reinforce market power or contribute to exclusionary dynamics. In this sense, diminished agency may not only raise concerns of individual detriment but also form part of the structural assessment of market power.

From a consumer protection perspective, consumer agency may serve as a benchmark for assessing fairness, transparency and the validity of consent. Particularly in digital markets characterised by complex interfaces and behavioural optimisation, consumer protection authorities could look beyond formal compliance with disclosure requirements and examine whether consumers can exercise informed and voluntary choice in practice. This may involve analysing how information is framed, sequenced and made salient; whether defaults or interface design steer decisions in ways that risk undermining genuine consent; and whether cancellation, withdrawal, or data access rights can be exercised without disproportionate burden. Behavioural evidence, user-journey analysis, comprehension testing and empirical data on actual consumer behaviour could support this assessment. Where attention is systematically captured, where consent is obtained under conditions of cognitive overload, or where switching is technically available but practically obstructed, enforcement bodies may consider whether such practices impair consumer autonomy within the meaning of applicable legal standards (Namysłowska, 2025[79]).

Although the legal tests differ, the lines of analysis can still be complementary. In competition law, constrained autonomy may weaken rivalry and entrench market power. In consumer law, similar constraints may render commercial practices unfair or misleading. In both domains, authorities could therefore reflect on different dimensions of agency:

• informational autonomy: whether consumers can access and process relevant information

• decisional autonomy: whether design unduly steers or manipulates choice

• switching autonomy: whether consumers can realistically change providers or multi-home

• data autonomy: whether consumers can control and transfer the data that increasingly conditions market participation.

3.2.2. Integration between competition and consumer policies in remedy design

If the integration between competition and consumer considerations is to be operational rather than merely conceptual, it could also extend beyond the qualification and analysis of conduct to the design, implementation and monitoring of remedies. Remedies are a way in which legal reasoning translates into concrete market interventions. Coherence between competition and consumer policy therefore depends not only on aligned substantive analysis, but also on co-ordinated remedial strategies.

Before digging into the specifics of the discussion, it is worth noting that the types of remedies available differ across the two policy areas. In competition law, remedies can be structural, behavioural or a hybrid of both.13 Consumer law typically relies on conduct-based remedies (such as disclosures, interface adjustments, or redress) while structural remedies, such as divestitures or interoperability mandates, are generally available only under competition law.

In both regimes, a remedy may be defined as the set of legal and practical measures adopted to terminate unlawful conduct and address its effects. Their orientation, however, differs. In competition law, remedies are directed at restoring or preserving the competitive process (OECD, 2025[81]; 2018[19]). They aim to eliminate mechanisms that distort rivalry and to re-establish conditions under which effective competition can operate (Bostoen and van Wamel, 2023[82]). Designing a competition remedy thus requires identifying how market power was created, leveraged, or entrenched, whether through structural integration, contractual restrictions, technological design or behavioural strategies, and calibrating an intervention capable of neutralising those mechanisms. Remedy design may also involve tensions worth acknowledging. Measures aimed at restoring competitive dynamics can in some circumstances generate unintended costs for consumers, including increased search costs or reduced service quality. Careful calibration and monitoring are therefore essential to ensure that remedies achieve their intended objectives without inadvertently undermining consumer welfare.

In consumer law, remedies are primarily concerned with restoring fairness and informed choice within the transactional relationship. They seek to halt unfair or deceptive practices, correct informational or behavioural imbalances, and, where appropriate, provide redress (Mucha, 2025[83]). Designing a consumer remedy involves examining how commercial practices shape understanding, consent, and decision making in practice, and determining which combination of prohibitions, disclosures, restitution or interface adjustments is necessary to restore meaningful autonomy.

In digital markets, these remedial logics are closely intertwined. Measures aimed at restoring competition, such as interoperability (Scott Morton and Kades, 2021[84]), data portability (OECD, 2021[85]), or ranking transparency (Veltri et al., 2020[86]), directly affect the conditions under which consumers exercise choice. Conversely, interventions targeting manipulative design or artificial switching frictions may alter competitive dynamics by reducing lock-in and strengthening multi-homing. Ensuring consistency at the remedial stage is therefore key to maintaining a coherent approach.

The effectiveness of such consistency depends on institutional co-operation. While convergence in substantive analysis is increasingly visible, remedial coherence requires structured interaction between competition and consumer authorities (OECD, 2025[81]). This may be facilitated in jurisdictions with a dual mandate, yet even there, co-ordination cannot be assumed. In systems with separate agencies, deliberate mechanisms of co-operation are essential to avoid fragmented or internally inconsistent interventions.

Co-operation is especially important at two distinct but interconnected phases of the remedial lifecycle: first, when remedies are designed and calibrated; and second, when their implementation and effects are monitored over time. These stages determine whether unlawful conduct is not only formally terminated, but effectively neutralised in practice, taking into account both structural market conditions and consumer-facing consequences.

The availability of structural tools in competition enforcement can influence the choice and design of remedies, including whether authorities complement or prioritise behavioural measures to restore effective competition and meaningful consumer choice. At the design stage, authorities must identify which obligations, prohibitions, or structural adjustments can address the identified concerns without generating unintended distortions. Competition authorities traditionally approach this task by focussing on market-level indicators, such as entry conditions, market shares, price dynamics, foreclosure patterns, or multi-homing rates. Consumer authorities, by contrast, are often more accustomed to analysing behavioural responses, whether revised disclosures improve comprehension, whether changes in defaults alter choices, whether cancellation flows reduce friction, or whether redesigned interfaces genuinely mitigate misleading effects. Integrating these perspectives at the outset can reduce the risk that a remedy appears structurally sound yet proves ineffective because users do not meaningfully perceive or act upon the new options available to them (Bush and Waller, 2024[87]). For example, in a 2025 settlement with Amazon, the US FTC required the company to make meaningful changes to the Prime enrollment and cancellation flows that focussed on eliminating practices that exploited consumer biases (e.g. Amazon can no longer have a button that says “No, I don’t want Free Shipping”), increasing transparency on the terms and conditions and facilitating consumers to cancel the service, using the same method as the one to sign up.14

Monitoring constitutes a second and equally critical phase. In digital markets, the effects of remedies may evolve over time, particularly where firms can adapt interfaces, algorithms, or contractual terms. Co-ordinated monitoring should therefore combine quantitative market analysis with empirical evidence on user behaviour, interface design and decision making patterns. Assessing only price or market share effects, without examining how consumers interact with the modified environment, may provide an incomplete picture. Conversely, focussing exclusively on behavioural metrics without considering structural competitive dynamics risks overlooking persistent barriers to rivalry.

The importance of careful remedy design and effective monitoring is underscored by the European Commission’s recent ex-post evaluation of antitrust remedies (European Commission: Directorate-General for Competition, GRIMALDI ALLIANCE and NERA, 2025[88]). The evaluation of 12 significant remedy cases found that while most remedies were fully implemented, fewer than half in the selected sample were fully effective in achieving their objective. Purely behavioural remedies were less likely to be both fully implemented and effective than other forms of remedies, although implementation and effectiveness appear to have improved over time. The study also formulates non-binding recommendations, including revisiting the hierarchy between behavioural and structural remedies under Article 7 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 (that allows the Commission to unilaterally impose remedies within prohibition decisions),15 expanding the use of market testing, and increasing reliance on monitoring trustees and strengthened reporting obligations.

Previous OECD work highlights that designing effective remedies is greatly enhanced by testing and refining them with actual consumers whenever feasible. Without such testing, authorities’ assumptions about what will be effective may be mistaken and could result in remedies that inadvertently harm markets or consumers. The type and amount of evidence needed to inform remedy design varies by case and depends on the judgment of the responsible authority or government (OECD, 2018[19]).

Closer co-operation also allows each policy domain to contribute more explicitly to the objectives of the other (OECD, 2025[81]). Competition authorities routinely design remedies, such as interoperability or data portability, which enhance consumer agency by enabling comparison and switching. Consumer protection enforcement, in turn, may indirectly address sources of market power by reducing information asymmetries, limiting exploitative choice architecture, or constraining artificial switching barriers. In digital markets, where dominance is often reinforced through behavioural and informational channels, such interventions may have structural implications. It is also worth noting that competition and consumer policy have sometimes drawn on different behavioural assumptions. Greater integration of behavioural economics into competition analysis, an area where consumer policy has longer-standing experience, may offer useful insights, for instance in assessing how consumers actually respond to information, remedies or changes in market structure, thereby strengthening the complementarity between the two policy areas.

Remedy design and post-remedy monitoring under these frameworks could consider their effects on both market players and consumers from a dual perspective. Interventions should be evaluated not only in terms of their impact on rivalry and market structure, but also in terms of how they shape users’ capacity to understand, compare, switch and control their data. Embedding this dual assessment throughout the remedial process is a necessary condition for ensuring that the convergence between competition and consumer policy in digital markets remains coherent, effective and mutually reinforcing.

Notes

← 1.  These are Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Some include other responsibilities such as data privacy, sectoral regulation and/or intellectual property rights.

← 2.  For the purposes of this paper, “advocacy initiatives” denotes non‑enforcement measures designed to foster a competitive market environment, such as market studies, advice to governments and regulators, and various forms of guidance and awareness‑raising.

← 3.  For the event description, see: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events/2026/02/consumer-injuries-benefits-data-driven-economy.

← 4.  For a description of the hearings, see: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events-calendar/ftc-hearing-11-competition-consumer-protection-21st-century.

← 5.  See ANPD’s press release: https://www.gov.br/anpd/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/cade-mpf-anpd-e-senacon-recomendam-que-whatsapp-adie-entrada-em-vigor-da-nova-politica-de-privacidade.

← 6.  To the date of drafting of this policy paper, the study was still ongoing. In January 2025, the FTC published initial findings. See more details on the study on: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/07/ftc-issues-orders-eight-companies-seeking-information-surveillance-pricing.

← 7.  See: https://www.drcf.org.uk/about-us.

← 8.  Moreover, in 2024, the OECD and INDRC held a joint workshop on the interplay between digital regulatory frameworks: https://www.oecd.org/en/events/2024/11/oecd-indrc-joint-workshop-on-the-interplay-between-digital-regulatory-frameworks.html.

← 9.  Enforcement by the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection has targeted manipulative interface and choice-architecture practices in online marketplace and e-commerce platforms. Decisions have been adopted against platforms such as OLX (proceedings concerning misleading presentation and ranking of offers and insufficient disclosure of optional services) and Vinted (for late disclosure of fees and verification requirements). Enforcement has also targeted fashion and retail e-commerce websites such as born2be.pl and renee.pl for using artificial urgency mechanisms, such as false countdown timers. These practices are relevant for both competition and consumer policy because they occur in platform-intermediated markets, affecting consumer autonomy and the transparency of competition between sellers using the platform. See: https://uokik.gov.pl/en/grupa-olx-decision-by-president-of-uokik and https://archiwum.uokik.gov.pl/aktualnosci.php?news_id=17912.

← 10.  For example, during the 2025 OECD Workshop on Leveraging Behavioural Economics in Competition Enforcement, different OECD jurisdictions shared experiences on how they introduce considerations on consumers’ behaviour in their analysis of the impact of certain practices on consumers in the framework of enforcement, advocacy and market studies activity. Among the shared experiences, the Competition Bureau (Canada) presented the launch of its Behavioural Insights Unit and highlighted how its work is contributing to consider insights of consumer policy in competition enforcement. The OECD formed an Informal Working Group on Behavioural Science and Competition, which meets regularly to discuss and share experiences on behavioural considerations in competition enforcement.

← 11.  This excludes enforcement action arising from ex ante regulation, such as proceedings in the framework of the DMA, DSA and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA), among other similar initiatives where a designated authority has the task of investigating conduct.

← 12.  Some jurisdictions allow collective redress mechanisms in the framework of the two policies, such as class actions, whereby a group of consumers who have suffered similar harm from the same practice may bring a joint claim against a business, typically represented by a consumer organisation or another authorised body.

← 13.  In competition law, behavioural remedies (or conduct remedies) alter how a firm conducts its operations. Behavioural remedies can take the form of either negative or positive obligations that the firm must comply with. In contrast, structural remedies require firms to divest, release or carve-out certain of their tangible or intangible assets. They are generally one-off remedies that intend to restore the competitive structure of the market (OECD, 2025[81]).

← 14.  According to complaint No. 2:23-cv-0932. See press release: FTC Secures Historic $2.5 Billion Settlement Against Amazon, available at: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/09/ftc-secures-historic-25-billion-settlement-against-amazon.

← 15.  Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty, OJ L 1, 4.1.2003, p. 1–25.