Abstract

The rise of digital platforms such as e-commerce marketplaces, social media networks, and app stores has transformed global markets by connecting diverse user groups while creating opportunities for innovation and growth. Yet, the distinct features of these platforms, namely multi-sidedness, network effects, and vertical integration, pose challenges for traditional competition law. Dominant platforms may exploit their position through self-preferencing, price parity clauses, and refusals to supply scarce digital services – practices that stifle innovation, restrict market access, and entrench their dominance. This contribution examines whether South Africa’s existing competition law framework is adequate to address digital platform abuse of dominance, or whether new regulatory instruments are required. It analyses the application of the Competition Act 89 of 1998 in digital contexts, with particular reference to the GovChat and Lottoland cases, which together form an emerging South African jurisprudence on scarce digital services. It further considers the findings of the Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry and the Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry on self-preferencing, price parity clauses, and refusals to supply. Drawing on comparative developments in the European Union, the United States of America and Brazil, and engaging critically with the limitations of the consumer welfare standard in digital markets, the contribution advances policy recommendations for a hybrid regulatory framework for South Africa. The contribution asserts that South Africa can best address digital platform dominance by combining vigorous enforcement of the existing Competition Act with carefully targeted ex ante obligations for designated digital gatekeepers. This hybrid approach balances fairness and innovation, aligns with the Constitution’s public interest mandate, and draws selectively on international experience rather than transplanting any single foreign regime as is.