The Proposal for a Digital Markets Act (DMA): A Summary
4 Pages Posted: 21 Jan 2022
Date Written: January 3, 2022
Abstract
On December 15, 2020, the European Commission released a proposal for a Digital Markets Act (DMA). The DMA targets so-called 'gatekeepers': large digital platforms that have become important gateways for business users and end users. The DMA imposes on gatekeepers a set of obligations amounting to prohibitions of commonplace digital platform practices. It is hard to understate the importance of the Commission's initiative. The DMA, together with its sister proposal for a Digital Services Act, amounts to the most significant overhaul of the digital regulatory landscape to date.
In the European Parliament, the DMA was assigned to the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Committee, which agreed on a compromise text in November 2021. The IMCO text was approved by the Parliament in its December 2021 Plenary and will be Parliament’s mandate for negotiations with EU governments in 2022. This summary is a four-page overview of the Parliament-approved version. Part I covers the scope of the DMA, which includes both the list of covered platform services and the gatekeeper designation process. Part II presents an overview of all the DMA obligations together with examples. Part III covers the compliance process and, finally, Part IV covers the enforcement mechanisms on which the DMA is built.
Keywords: competition law, antitrust, platforms, gatekeepers, digital, DMA, digital markets act, regulation, EU law
JEL Classification: K20, K21, K23, L40, L50, L51
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation