Damien Geradin: Digital Markets Act, Compliance Reports & Gatekeepers Strategies, Goals of the DMA

This week marks an important milestone of the new EU pro-competition regime for regulating competition in digital markets. 7 March s the deadline for the Commission to receive compliance reports by all designated gatekeepers. After receiving the reports the Commission – and after accessing their non-confidential summaries the broader digital competition community – will be able to make some preliminary conclusions about the seriousness with which each of the gatekeepers treats their effective compliance duty.
Damien Geradin belongs to a small cohort of competition lawyers combining their top professional competence in purely juristic aspects of the field with nuanced understanding the technicalities of digital markets – both from commercial business model and purely technical data science perspectives. Being also very collegial and easy-going speaker, it is a great opportunity to learn what he thinks (and does) within EU DMA and UK DMCC regimes.
We have covered many issues including the following:
– is he overall happy with the legal material of the DMA – the rules which we will be working with in the next years?
– main shortcomings of the DMA
– can the Commission DMA team enforce the entire catalogue of gatekeeper obligations act the same time?
– which of the core platform services and which of the obligations of Arts 5–7 appear to be the most important and worth being prioritised first?
– compliance reports: the form & the substance
– non-confidential summaries of the reports
– the rationale of the anti-circumvention provision
– what is his specific reading of apparently open-ended scope of fairness and contestability goals of the DMA?
– the substance of the digital advertising supply chain: can the machinery of programmatic advertising be changed/replicated?
– how different gatekeepers treat their duty to comply
– cloud computing: what is at stake
– FRAND obligations of the DMA or final offer mechanism of the DMCC
– taking active part in both EU DMA and UK DMCC discussions, what is Damien’s impressions about the roles of third parties and stakeholders in the legislative process; what are the factual differences between the EU and UK legislative processes
– similarities and differences in university systems and academic life in EU & UK
– recommendations to students

--------------------------
The Digital Markets Research Hub is an independent academic initiative aiming at scrutinising the functioning of competition/regulation in digital markets. We host one-to-one interviews with leading policymakers, regulators and practitioners. We also organise online mini-workshops inviting high-profile experts and academics in various fields of digital competition law & policy to discuss the most vibrant issues of the ongoing regulatory reforms in digital markets. While having our clear normative stand on the matters discussed within the hub, we value different views and invite relevant stakeholders and thinkers representing the whole spectrum of reasonable positions on how to regulate competition in digital markets. All our materials are available at YouTube channel, which you are very welcome to subscribe to.
The interview is organised & conducted by Prof. Oles Andriychuk, Newcastle Law School, UK