Clifford Chance on the DMA: « Be prepared for the fact that disputes may arise at every stage of the enforcement process »

Katrin Schallenberg is a competition lawyer and associate at the international law firm Clifford Chance. Gail Orton is an expert in institutional affairs and heads the firm’s EU public policy department. Very much aware of the legal developments in the digital world, they both followed very closely the negotiations that led, last week, to an agreement between the Council and the European Parliament on the Digital Markets Act. They share with ElectronLibre their first perspectives on the concrete application of the text. The European institutions agreed last week on the provisions of the future Digital Markets Act. How would you summarize the purpose of this regulation? Katrin Schallenberg – The basic idea of the new text is to ensure more competition online, by allowing companies to use and profit from platforms, and to have access to consumers via platforms owned by gatekeepers. To this end, Articles 5 and 6 of the DMA establish a range of obligations, including data sharing, which will require search engines such as Google to share certain data with third parties; and interoperability, which will allow consumers to communicate between different messaging platforms. Rules will also apply to app stores, to allow third parties to sell their services without necessarily going through the gatekeeper. « From a technical standpoint, the enforceability of this last obligation (Messaging Interoperability, ed.) will be complex. » What changes with the DMA compared to competition…