Partners Damien Geradin and Stijn Huijts had the pleasure of sitting down with Joost Rietveld, an Associate Professor of Strategic Management at the UCL School of Management, University College London, to discuss his fascinating insights into platform competition and strategy. Joost has been a major contributor to the public debate in this area in the past few years. He is an expert on platform competition and platform strategy—topics on which he has published research articles in top academic journals in the fields of business strategy, innovation management, and entrepreneurship. He also co ..read more

On 25 March 2024, the Commission announced that it had opened non-compliance investigations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) into three of the companies that have been designated as gatekeepers, namely Alphabet, Apple, and Meta. These investigations concern various issues, including rules on steering in app stores, choice screens for browsers, self-preferencing in general search, and data combination. Moreover, the Commission announced that it has taken investigatory steps relating to Apple’s new fee structure for alternative app stores and Amazon’s ranking practices on its marketplace. In ..read more

The UK’s mobile sector is highly competitive.  Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, has spent the last few decades carefully designing spectrum auctions and other measures to foster fierce competition among the four mobile network operators. I’m currently paying £10 ($12.70) per month for unlimited 5G data on the best network for coverage. When I was at university, I was paying over £60 in today’s prices. This allowed me to send 15 text messages per month, make a limited number of voice calls, and use no data whatsoever on a 2G network. Now the CMA has issued its phase 1 decision in a merger c ..read more

Today, the large digital platforms that have been designated by the European Commission as “gatekeepers” must start to comply with the Digital Markets Act (or DMA). This marks a milestone for businesses operating in the EU because the DMA will resolve many challenges they face in their relations with gatekeepers, such as lack of access to data, limited interoperability, and unfair contractual terms.   The Commission has designated as gatekeepers Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and ByteDance for the following services: The above services are now subject to a series of obligations ..read more

Yesterday, Apple made an important announcement regarding changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European Union in response to the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”). This announcement covers a lot of ground and should be read in parallel with a number of accompanying documents. In this blog post, I discuss my first (and therefore provisional) reactions to this announcement as it concerns Apple’s new terms for the distribution of iOS apps in the EU. App distribution is a subject we have dealt with on many occasions on this blog to express our frustration with Apple’s unwillingness to accom ..read more

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On 24 October 2023, a coalition of 32 U.S. Attorney Generals filed a federal lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. This is the result of a U.S.-wide investigation announced in 2021. The lawsuit comes after years of empirical research revealing the harmful nature of social networks, and particularly the specific features of Meta’s social media platforms.[1] Relying on both substantial scientific research and internal sources revealed by whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021, Attorney Generals develop elaborate arguments to allege ..read more

Fairness is one of the two objectives pursued by the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Aside from making some sparse and broad references to what may constitute an unfair practice (see, for instance, Recital (33)), the DMA does not establish a normative definition of fairness based on criteria that could serve as benchmarks against which to assess gatekeepers’ conduct. As a result, the debate has been raging about how to interpret fairness for the purposes of the DMA. One issue that is central to that discussion is whether the DMA is restricted to protecting fairness in platform-to-business (P2B) re ..read more

Yesterday, the CMA successfully overturned the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s (CAT) ruling that the CMA’s market investigation reference (MIR) into mobile browsers and cloud gaming was out of time and therefore unlawful. This opens the door to the CMA reopening the MIR which could lead to significant remedies being imposed against Apple. Background The CMA’s MIR followed its market study, which ran from June 2021 to June 2022, into mobile ecosystems – i.e. operating systems, app stores and web browsers. As many of you will know, the CMA concluded in its market study that there are significant ..read more

One of the issues I am often asked about the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) is how to ensure that it will be properly implemented. While business users of core platform services will often be pleased with the content of the provisions that apply to the relevant gatekeepers, there is a concern that these provisions may not be implemented in a satisfactory manner. While gatekeepers are unlikely to refuse to implement some provisions, they may for instance reduce the effectiveness of some provisions by introducing friction that will discourage business users and/or consumers from taking advantage t ..read more