Browsing by Subject "effectiveness"

Digitalization requires new legislative tools that can effectively address the issues that are specific to digital markets. In the European Union, cases concerning dominant platforms used to fall under EU competition law and Article 102 TFEU, but this legal framework was sometimes ineffective in regulating issues that exist in digital markets. For instance, the Google Shopping case illustrates one of the difficulties of Article 102 TFEU in relation to digital markets, which are the abuses that are specific to digital markets, such as self-favouring. Digital markets evolve rapidly, and thus they require quick and effective responses from legislators. In order to further regulate digital markets, the European Commission introduced the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) in 2020 and the DMA rules start to apply in May 2023. The overall objective of the DMA is to increase contestability and fairness in digital markets while simultaneously creating a more effective legal framework. The DMA is a sector-specific EU regulation that regulates the actions of the biggest digital platforms that are called gatekeepers, which offer their services to business users and end users located in the European Union. When the Commission designates a platform as a gatekeeper, the platform must follow the obligations set out by the DMA within six months after the designation. The main goal of this thesis is analysing the effectiveness of the regulation of digital markets after the DMA. As this thesis is finalized in April 2023 and the DMA rules start to apply in May 2023, this thesis focuses on the elements of effectiveness that can be evaluated now. In order to illustrate the effectiveness of the DMA, one of the central elements is the application of the DMA rules to the Google Shopping case. By applying the new legal framework to a case that was judged under the Article 102 TFEU framework, improvements in effectiveness will be portrayed in a more concrete manner. Furthermore, this thesis also examines the potential shortcomings when it comes to the effectiveness of the DMA. One of the most significant issues of the DMA is its inflexibility towards future developments. This thesis argues that while the DMA provides an effective framework for addressing the current issues in digital markets, it is unable to address future developments in digital markets effectively.