On March 24, 2022 the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached political agreement on the “Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector” (Digital Markets Act or DMA). The political agreement comes just 15 months after the European Commission published its legislative proposal. The DMA aims to ensure fair and contestable markets in the digital sector. It will, once formally adopted, impose a set of prohibitions and obligations on “core platform services” providers that are designated “gatekeepers” under the DMA. It will also enable the Commission to carry out market investigations and sanction non-compliant behavior.
Along with the Digital Services Act, the DMA forms part of a comprehensive reform of the digital space in the European Union, and is a key component of the “European digital strategy” to make Europe fit for the digital age.
On January 19, 2021, major changes to German antitrust/competition law, i.e. the 10th Amendment Act to the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (ARC) entered into force.
In addition to introducing stricter abuse control, in particular over digital companies with a strong market position (so much so that one may refer to the act as the “ARC Digitisation Act”) and effecting changes to procedural rules and cartel prosecution, the new law also introduces substantive changes in merger control rules which may bring significant relief for international transactions. More information on the ARC Digitisation Act and other altered antitrust/competition rules will follow in this blog.
The thresholds of German merger control have traditionally been very low in comparison to other international regimes. The German legislator has now decided to significantly increase the domestic turnover filing thresholds. Last week’s discussions in the German parliament and in its economic committee surprisingly resulted in even higher thresholds than originally proposed in the bill presented by the German government.
On 2 June 2020, the European Commission (the Commission) published its inception impact assessment (or roadmap) on the possible adoption of regulation that would introduce a new market investigation tool. This assessment was immediately followed by the launch of a public consultation to seek views and feedback from the public regarding such a tool. The new tool would enable the Commission to investigate and impose behavioural and/or structural remedies on businesses with significant market power, whether dominant or not – and without any prior finding of a competition law infringement. As such, this new tool could present a significant risk and potential burden for companies with market power. On the other hand, it offers potential benefits to market participants, such as new entrants, who might otherwise see their access to markets foreclosed.
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