The Digital Services Act: a primer Following its adoption by the Council on October 4, the final version of the Digital Services Act (DSA) has been approved and will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) in the forthcoming weeks. The DSA operates a major step in the ambitious project of…
On 18 January 2022, Microsoft announced its future acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which will be the largest tech merger in the history of the United States. The press release voiced concern on a range of competition authorities around the World. Microsoft is one of the three contenders in the market of console-making and by acquiring…
The rapid development of digital markets has been posing major challenges to competition authorities for some time. The ‘internet giants’ consisting of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft have as already known been able to gain and consolidate strong market positions faster than in analogue markets. The previous antitrust law was, according to the own…
On 12 May 2022, the European Court of Justice delivered its preliminary ruling in response to a number of questions referred to it by an Italian court tasked to assess whether the use of customer data (legitimately collected by the ENEL group during a legal monopoly position) to target offers to those same customers once…
In the coming years, data collected by vehicles will be subject to a new EU regulatory regime consisting of horizontal rules applicable across many industries and vertical rules designed specifically for the automotive sector. In February 2022, the EU Commission adopted a proposal for a new Data Act, which is currently working its way through…
The following is a selection of some of the most important developments in German competition law and policy in 2021. It has been a busy year for the Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”), inter alia because the new rules for digital companies took effect. The following covers cases under these new rules, abuse of dominance, merger…
The market power of big tech firms like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft (the GAFAM) has long been a thorn in the eyes of the European Commission (EC).[1] Ever since the EU drafted the Digital Markets Act[2] to regulate market power in the digital markets, they faced strong protests.[3] The widely received Epic-Apple court…
On 24 December 2021, the Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM) published a summary decision finding an abuse of a dominant position by Apple. The decision dates back to 24 August 2021 but was published only last month following an injunction proceeding aimed at suspending the effects of the ACM’s decision as well as…
The Indian antitrust landscape has recently shifted its focus to the regulation of digital markets. To achieve this end, substantial changes to the country’s merger control mechanisms were proposed in the Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (the Amendment/the Bill). One of the central purposes of these amendments is to prospectively analyse mergers and acquisitions that may…
In early December 2021, Advocate General Rantos delivered his Opinion in a request for a preliminary ruling referred by an Italian court (Case C-377/20). Although AG Rantos’ Opinion is not yet available in English, this will be a case to watch. Indeed, AG Rantos’ Opinion has already generated interest not only because the underlying conduct…
