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This article seeks to understand whether European competition law can deal with the phenomenon of Fake News. Fake News can have a significant market value that certain players may be tempted to exploit. The rise of digital technology has largely contributed to the use of Fake News for different business models. The analysis shows that a conceptual link between competition law and fake news can arise if the purpose of competition law is not reduced to the promotion of consumer welfare, but if on the contrary it considers other interests in the competitive process such as fairness or economic freedom. It is thus possible to construct a restriction of competition based on the idea that behaviour based on the use of Fake News is contrary to these interests. The question nevertheless arises whether the solution constitutes an alternative to existing legislative tools – the latter may, where appropriate, be better placed to contain the use of Fake News. The analysis shows that the two tools do not respond to the same type of prejudice: competitive prejudice is a structural and collective prejudice to the functioning of a market, whereas the prejudice to which the specific texts respond can also be an individual and not necessarily collective prejudice. Consequently, it seems possible that the two mechanisms may intervene at the same time in order to compensate for different losses. However, this distinction is not always easy to make: the informational loss suffered by an individual may be confused with the competitive loss suffered by the market.

Le présent article montre que le droit de la concurrence de l’Union européenne peut appréhender le phénomène des Fake News si son application n’est pas réduite à la seule promotion du bien-être du consommateur, mais prend au contraire en considération des exigences relatives au processus concurrentiel. Composé d’une structure qui intègre les deux finalités, le droit européen de la concurrence peut par conséquent proposer un levier supplémentaire pour l’encadrement des Fake News. Cette possibilité soulève cependant des interrogations quant à la cohérence avec les outils normatifs existants : ces derniers semblent parfois mieux adaptés à leur encadrement que les règles de concurrence stricto sensu. À ce titre, l’analyse montre que les différents régimes ne répondent pas nécessairement au même préjudice, ce qui rend une application cumulée en théorie possible.