OECD Competition Law and Policy’s Post

The UK has finally adopted its long-awaited legislation establishing a new pro-competition regime for digital markets. To discuss the main features of the Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act we organised a panel ( 📹 https://lnkd.in/e-su58-9) with three remarkable participants. Lara Dimitrova Stoimenova – Managing Director of Sigma Economics (ex-Ofcom & CMA) Sarah Long – Partner at Euclid Law Firm Max von Thun-Hohenstein Yoshioka – Director of Europe & Transatlantic Partnerships at the Open Markets Institute Among the topics receiving attention of the speakers are the following: ✔ Open-endedness of goals: bug or feature? ✔ Comparing legislative processes in the EU (the DMA) & the UK (the DMCCA) ✔ The CMA consultation on new digital markets competition guidance ✔ Is the requirement of having so many mandatory consultations good or bad for a new regime? ✔ What potential implications should the CMA be mindful of when consulting on the new guidance bearing in mind the life of Art 102 Guidance Paper ✔ Formally, unlike the DMA, the DMCCA is not a new start but a continuation of competition policy: implications ✔ The elegance of the formula "the CMA [...] will apply this guidance flexibly and may depart from the approach described where there is an appropriate and reasonable justification for doing so" ✔ The level of judicial scrutiny and the role of judicial authorities in the new architecture. ✔ Discussing (the relationship between the) two autonomous procedures: "Conduct Requirements" & "Pro-Competition Interventions" ✔ Changes in merger control ✔ Final offer mechanism (DMCCA) vs. FRAND terms (DMA) ✔ Recommendations to students New video 🎬 https://lnkd.in/e-su58-9 Previous 66th episode has been published last Tuesday featuring Filomena Chirico: The Digital Markets Act: From Strategy & Vision to First Non-Compliance Cases – https://lnkd.in/e76T5MwY Next 68th episode will be released next Tuesday. We will offer an interview with Prof. Damien Gérard, Prosecutor General of the Belgian Competition Authority. A chronological list of all 67 episodes is available in the first comment to the video.

Getting the EU SEP Regulation right — Part 3: Small and medium-sized enterprises’ problems not SEP-specific The issues SMEs face due to resource constraints are largely the same when non-standard-essential #patents are asserted. And that happens a lot. Note that in this article, ip fray acknowledges that various arguments and questions raised by proponents of the EU SEP Regulation have at least some merit. But they can't make a compelling case that urgent legislative intervention is needed. https://lnkd.in/gi2Caife

Less than a month ago, a new draft bill that would, among other things, amend the Hungarian Competition Act, was surprisingly published on the government's official website. The new proposal would significantly expand the Hungarian Competition Authority's toolkit by giving it new powers (including the ability to designate 'companies of essential importance' and ultimately force owners to sell shares in such companies), raising several questions as to how exactly and with what procedural guarantees the new rules will be enforced. Our Budapest competition team summarises the main new proposals in the draft bill and sheds light on some possible interpretations of the main legal issues. #cerhahempel #competitionlaw #eulaw #enforcement #publiclaw https://lnkd.in/dDJSFbpc

BRICS Gathered in Geneva to Discuss a New Digital Order The BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre was established in 2018 by the BRICS competition authorities. The Centre’s work is aimed at collecting and analyzing information from competition agencies, identifying best practices, but primarily at preparing recommendations and developing approaches to competition policy that reflect the interests of the development of the BRICS economies. "One of the most pressing issues now, at the initial stage of digitalization, is still the streamlining and creation of a regulatory framework for future global processes. This includes the issue of antitrust regulation, both within individual countries and various interstate associations, such as the EU or BRICS." https://lnkd.in/gt_6brPW

If you have not yet made it through the 188 pages of the Competition and Markets Authority's Guidance on the Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (or the 452 pages of the Act itself) then never fear - grab a coffee and you can watch (or just listen) to our discussion on some of the main features of the new regime. Many thanks to Oles Andriychuk and the Digital Markets Research Hub for the invitation, and to my panelists Lara Dimitrova Stoimenova and Max von Thun-Hohenstein Yoshioka for their excellent contributions. #DMCCA #digitalmarkets #coffeebreakcontent ********************************************************************** The UK has finally adopted its long-awaited legislation establishing a new pro-competition regime for digital markets. To discuss the main features of the Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act we organised a panel ( 📹 https://lnkd.in/e-su58-9) with three remarkable participants. Lara Dimitrova Stoimenova – Managing Director of Sigma Economics (ex-Ofcom & CMA) Sarah Long – Partner at Euclid Law Firm Max von Thun-Hohenstein Yoshioka - Director of Europe & Transatlantic Partnerships at the Open Markets Institute Among the topics receiving attention of the speakers are the following: ✔ Open-endedness of goals: bug or feature? ✔ Comparing legislative processes in the EU (the DMA) & the UK (the DMCCA) ✔ The CMA consultation on new digital markets competition guidance ✔ Is the requirement of having so many mandatory consultations good or bad for a new regime? ✔ What potential implications should the CMA be mindful of when consulting on the new guidance bearing in mind the life of Art 102 Guidance Paper ✔ Formally, unlike the DMA, the DMCCA is not a new start but a continuation of competition policy: implications ✔ The elegance of the formula "the CMA [...] will apply this guidance flexibly and may depart from the approach described where there is an appropriate and reasonable justification for doing so" ✔ The level of judicial scrutiny and the role of judicial authorities in the new architecture. ✔ Discussing (the relationship between the) two autonomous procedures: "Conduct Requirements" & "Pro-Competition Interventions" ✔ Changes in merger control ✔ Final offer mechanism (DMCCA) vs. FRAND terms (DMA) ✔ Recommendations to students New video 🎬 https://lnkd.in/e-su58-9

🔍 Read our article discussing the report on the standard essential patents (#SEPs) regulation proposal of the European Commission, adopted by the #EuropeanParliament last week. The Parliament's majority has backed the European Commission's implementer-friendly approach to the proposal, but it is likely that the adoption of the final regulation (2025 at the earliest) will still take some time given the upcoming #EU elections and the ongoing discussions in the #Council. It remains to be seen which compromise will eventually be deemed fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (#FRAND).

📰 Strelia Competition Newsflash May 2024 – The EU’s Digital Markets Act gets implemented in Belgian national Law ✒️ Pierre Goffinet and Loïck Goddeau 💡 On 3 May 2024, the Belgian legislator adopted an act implementing the Digital Markets Act in Book IV of the Belgian Code on Economic Law. Besides the modification of various provisions, a new title 4 is added to the end of Book IV. The act designates the Belgian Competition Authority with the powers to support the European Commission with the enforcement of the Digital Markets Act. Click here to read our Competition Newsflash of May 2024 👉 https://lnkd.in/euF65XjG #Competition #DMA #EuropeanCommission #BelgianCompetitionAuthority #strelia #toptieronahumanscale

After having presented a first draft at the ASCOLA Conference this year, my paper ‘The Ecosystem Concept, the DMA and Section 19a GWB’ has been published in the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement last week! For quite some time, I have been asking myself what exactly is meant when competition law scholars speak of digital ecosystems. I found a possible answer in the strategic management literature. Its scholars have already developed an ecosystem concept that is well-suited to describe competitive dynamics in the digital economy. In my paper, I outline the ideas the concept is based on, highlight the vital role that large digital corporations play as ecosystem orchestrators, and identify aspects that have not yet received adequate attention in competition policy. I then analyse whether new legislation – the DMA at the EU level and Section 19a GWB in Germany – is modelled on these insights and addresses the identified issues. I hope you enjoy the read! https://lnkd.in/dRECf8RM

💡 Take a look at our most recent publication on the implementation of the DMA in Belgium!

How do the #DigitalMarketsAct and the EU #antitrust rules complement each other - both in terms of substance and in terms of procedure? My reflections are available now in the #JAE in open access: https://lnkd.in/dGWR3A-y This is part of a comprehensive symposium on latest EU regulation: https://lnkd.in/d2EsVuhP (contributions published so far by Anne C. Witt, Rupprecht Podszun, Jiri Kindl & myself). Thanks for the invitation, Ariel Ezrachi! #DMA #complementarity #CompetitionLaw