Digital economy

Abuse of dominance, Data protection, Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, European Commission, European Court of Justice, Germany, Google, National competition authorities (NCAs)

(University Villanueva, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

On 5 October 2023, the German competition authority adopted its first tangible evidence of enforcement surrounding its new competition rules (Section 19a GWB) directed at undertakings with paramount significance for competition across markets on its case against Google for its data processing terms (see the Bundeskartellamt’s decision designating Alphabet here and a previous comment on…

Data protection, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, Regulation

(IMDEA Networks) and (University Villanueva, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

The data economy is now thriving. A considerable corporate, entrepreneurial and research effort is aimed to enable a healthy trading of such an important asset, and hence contribute to de-siloing data and unlocking the combinatorial economic value of data that now rest in different corporate warehouses. However, the structuring of data ecosystems is still under…

Abuse of dominance, Advantage, Advertising, App stores, Apple, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, European Commission, European Union, Ex ante regulation, Facebook

(University Villanueva, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

The wheels of the DMA have started turning and so have the International Law Talk episodes. I had the pleasure to interview Assimakis Komninos following the Commission’s press release establishing the economic operators that it had designated as gatekeepers under the DMA. This triggering event gave us the excuse to talk about a range of…

Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act

(University Villanueva, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

The European Commission has made it in time to designate the economic operators which will be the targets of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). On the 6th of September, the EC issued a press release detailing the different actions it had endeavoured since seven different undertakings had notified their potential status as gatekeepers on 4…

Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, Ex ante regulation, Germany, Google

(University of Zurich)/ /Leave a comment

On 21 June 2023, the Bundeskartellamt, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO), sent a statement of objections to Google and published its preliminary legal assessment of Google’s practices in connection with Google Automotive Services (GAS). According to the Authority’s preliminary evaluation, Google’s practices regarding the licencing of services for infotainment systems in vehicles fulfil the requirements…

Amazon, Apple, Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, Ex ante regulation, Facebook, Google, Governance, Procedures, Proportionality

(University Villanueva, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

On the 31st of July, the European Commission issued for public consultation its (fourth) Template relating to the audited description of consumer profiling techniques pursuant to Article 15 of the DMA (the Template). The Template is inserted within the Commission’s wider transparency strategy to provide for a stream of implementing acts to secure the DMA’s…

Abuse of dominance, Concentrations, Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, Dutch clause, European Commission, Ex ante regulation, Merger control, Merger notification, National competition authorities (NCAs), Platforms

(University Villanueva, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

On 14 July 2023, the European Commission launched its second template relating to the gatekeeper’s compliance with Article 14 of the DMA (the Template), i.e., their obligation to inform about any intended concentration involving core platform services or any other services in the digital sector or enabling the collection of data (Article 14(1) of the…

Abuse of dominance, Advertising, Advocate General, Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital Markets Act, Enforcement, European Court of Justice, Facebook, Germany, References for a preliminary ruling

(University Villanueva, Spain)/ /2 Comments

On 4 July 2023, the Court of Justice resolved the conundrum around the potential interaction between data protection regulation and competition law following the legal opera that started in 2019 with the German competition authority’s case against Facebook/Meta’s processing activities (for a summary of the case, see here). The ruling hops onto Advocate General Rantos’…

Abuse of dominance, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital Markets Act, European Commission, Google, Proportionality, Remedies, Self-preferencing, Statement of Objections

(Leiden University & KU Leuven)/ /Leave a comment

Google’s behaviour in the advertising technology sector (Ad Tech) is under attack or, at the very least, it is being intensely scrutinised on both sides of the Atlantic. Google is already subject to several antitrust suits in the U.S. lodged against it by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and individual States. In the European Union,…

Digital, Digital economy, Merger control, Merger regulation, Merger Thresholds, United Kingdom

(Arthur Cox)/ /Leave a comment

This article discusses how the CMA has reached a ‘tipping point’ in ‘Big Tech’ merger enforcement, what the Competition Appeals Tribunal could do in Microsoft v Competition and Markets Authority to recentre and refocus the CMA’s work, and why this all matters to digital markets, and beyond.                …