Digital platforms behave as quasi-governments replacing regulators in their public duties of decision-making and rule-setting. To address this shift, legislators in different jurisdictions are adopting digital regulations across various fields, notably to curb digital market power or content moderation. The striking difference between these rules and those set out in the past lies in the…
The recent Google Shopping ruling has already sparked much debate, and an earlier blog post offers a detailed overview of the judgment itself. Building on this, this contribution’s focus is to emphasize and discuss some aspects in the academic analysis, the judgment’s broader implications and outlook for further actions. It builds upon a recently published…
After years of planning and debate, the UK’s Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Act will come into force on 1 January 2025. This landmark legislation provides expanded powers to the CMA in respect of merger control, digital markets, competition and consumer protection. The DMCC The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC) is the final…
A new kid may join the digital tech regulation block. On 2 December, the Australian Treasure proposed a new digital competition regime addressing digital market power. The policy of the Australian legislator and enforcer builds on its long-term digital strategy, triggered in 2017. For more than seven years now, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission…
The Digital Markets Act (DMA)’s provisions started to apply on 2 May 2023. Since then, undertakings have been forced to check whether they met the quantitative thresholds. If that was the case, the DMA compelled them to notify their potential gatekeeper status to the European Commission. The first wave of designation decisions relating to six gatekeepers…
The recent judgment of the CJEU in Booking.com represents yet another development in the long series of cases concerning price parity clauses in the platform economy. In Booking.com’s case, the judgment represents the end of the line for its parity clauses. In its greater context of applying EU competition law in the digital economy, the…
While core competition law enforcement has been going on for a while, the enforcement of the adjacent digital regulation is just beginning. The conference “Tools for Better Enforcement of EU Law in the Digital Space” dealt with such problems and took place on November 7 and 8, 2024 at the European Legal Studies Institute (ELSI)…
The Draghi Report proposes substantial reform in the area of competition law, notably offering a critical assessment of recent policies implemented by the European Commission in merger control and antitrust enforcement. The Report will serve as a potential blueprint for Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, the Competition Commissioner-Designate and the European Commission to shape and execute competition…
Introduction The decision of the ECJ of 10th of September 2024 (C-48/22 P) brings the Google Shopping saga to an end. The decision by the highest court confirms the conviction of Alphabet by the General Court (T-612/17) (see the blogpost on General Court’s decision here). The European Commission had previously imposed a record fine of…
To commemorate the Digital Markets Act’s initial designation decisions, in September the European Commission issued its first two decisions opening specification proceedings on Apple’s technical implementation of Article 6(7) DMA (see case DMA.100203 and case DMA.100204). These are the first specification proceedings triggered by the European Commission as stemming from its capacity to do so…
