The EU Digital Markets Act is about to enter into force: Time to consider what this new landmark law is all about!

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) which was adopted by the European Parliament and Council in July earlier this year, is anticipated to enter into force in October 2022 and revolutionize the way in which so-called Big Tech is regulated in the EU. It will impose stringent obligations on a small number of very large online platforms that act as “Gatekeepers”. These Gatekeepers are core online platforms, such as online search engines, marketplaces and social networks, whose status is presumed where a company provides a “core platform service” in at least three EU Member States and meets a number of quantitative criteria (including EU turnover of at least  EUR 7.5 billion or a market capitalization of at least EUR 75 billion and 45 million monthly active end users and 10,000 yearly active business users in the EU).

Gatekeepers are subjected to several innovative and impactful requirements under the DMA, which aim to level the playing field in the online space, through transparency and trust. Some of these obligations result in the limitation of the Gatekeepers’ ability to process and use personal data, determine the ranking of its own and third parties’ offerings (through the imposition of certain non-discriminatory conditions to ranking, such as display and rating), negotiate certain conditions with business users and impose certain (access and other) restrictions on end users. In addition, the DMA obliges Gatekeepers to inform the European Commission (Commission) of a proposed ‘concentration’ involving other companies from the digital sector or which are active in data collection, irrespective of whether the merger would be notifiable to the Commission or a national competition authority under the relevant merger control rules.

The Commission is given exclusive competence to apply the DMA in order to ensure uniform enforcement throughout the Union and has the ability to impose severe fines (of up to 10% or 20% of the worldwide group turnover in the preceding financial year, depending on whether there are repeated violations) and remedies for noncompliance. However, Member States may also authorise their respective national competition authorities to investigate possible violations of the DMA and to forward the results of their investigations to the Commission.

Our Team is available to assist companies providing ‘core platform services’, to fully understand the implications of the DMA.