EU makes a bold step towards fair competition in the digital sector

Yesterday, a political deal at EU level on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to harmonise rules to ensure contestable and fair markets in the digital sector has been found among the co-legislators. The Regulation concerns the world’s large digital companies, so called “gatekeepers”, who have significant impact on the internal market and strong intermediation position connecting large user base to businesses.

BusinessEurope Director General Markus J. Beyrer said: "Yesterday’s political agreement is a bold step towards legal certainty and towards fair competition in the digital sector. This brings value for all economic actors and for customers in Europe and worldwide. But as the devil is in the detail, we’ll study this final agreement to see if it can fully deliver on these objectives. 

We very much support that the original structure of provisions has mostly been kept concerning obligations for gatekeepers – thus allowing for a proper regulatory dialogue. This proper regulatory dialogue must now ensure clear and efficient gatekeeper compliance and third parties should be able to submit their opinions concerning measures that the gatekeeper shall implement. Such a possibility will increase the information flow and awareness in the business ecosystem and help establish a trustful relationship. But this dialogue must not be used to lower obligations or lead to unjustified delays in implementation of the rules.

To enforce these rules, we strongly support a centralised supervision and enforcement of the DMA at EU level, and we believe national competition authorities can play a useful supporting role. However, good enforcement will only happen when the resources allocated for this task are sufficient.”