Regulating Digital Markets in Europe. A Comparative Assessment of the Digital Markets Act and Recommendations for Future Adjustments

Essay from the year 2024 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: 73.00, Queen Mary University of London, language: English, abstract: This essay examines the development of competition law in digital markets. In particular, it highlights the challenges posed by the specific characteristics of digital markets. Further, it explains the operating principles of the Digital Markets Act and compares it with s.19a GWB. It examines the functioning of both laws with regard to their respective advantages and disadvantages and develops a recommendation on how the DMA should be adapted in the future. For decades, arts.101 and 102 TFEU have been the main rules for EU competition authorities to prevent companies from engaging in unfair and anti-competitive practices. Now, with the Digital Markets Act ("DMA"), a new set of rules has come into force in 2023 to address such practices by companies operating in digital markets, thereby seeking to ensure the contestability and fairness of these markets. The DMA, which also aims to simplify and speed up procedures, moves away from the case-by-case analysis of competition law, where competition authorities sanction infringements of arts.101 and 102 TFEU ex post. Instead, the DMA adopts a more regulatory approach aimed at preventing certain practices in the first place. This was seen as necessary because of the enforcement problems posed by the specific characteristics of rapidly developing digital markets.