Digital – Willingness of national competition authorities to be involved in the Digital Market Act: which interaction with competition law?
Since the publication by the European Commission of the proposed Digital Market Act (“DMA”) regulation on December 15, 2020, which introduces new tools to control the main players in the digital sector (“gatekeepers”), many questions have been raised. Among them, the importance of the powers granted to the European Commission to organize this new regulation of the digital sector and the articulation of these control powers with competition law. The European Competition Network (ECN) has recently published a document highlighting the need to coordinate this control under the DMA and the procedures relating to competition law.
The document suggests that national competition authorities should be able to enforce the DMA in close cooperation with the European Commission, on the basis of the cooperation mechanism established by the ECN over the past twenty years.
In addition to clarifying the articulation between the DMA and competition rules, the question arises of the safeguards which will be provided on the European Commission and national competition authorities’ powers to ensure that the preventive control mechanisms provided for in the draft DMA are not implemented to the detriment of the rights of defence of companies.
