EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

Prague, Czechia

• The Digital Market Act (DMA) (European Commission DMA [online], 2020); • The Digital Services Act (DSA) (European Commission DSA [online], 2020); and • The Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) (European Commission AIA [online], 2021). Two further initiatives have been announced but have not yet led to a proposal for legislative action: • The proposal for a Data Act including the review of the Directive 96/9/ EC on the legal protection of databases; and • An AI Liability Act. Concerning legislative regulatory proposals, this paper will focus only on two proposals – the DMA and the DSA. 2. Problem Formulation and Methodology This paper analyses the changes that this “digital revolution” has brought about in terms of a more direct access to digital (end) consumers in the digital sector, using a special term “digital end consumers”, both from the point of view of European competition law and from the point of view of European consumer law. The paper tries to find the answers to the following questions: Why is competition policy important for the European consumers regardless of whether it is the digital world or not? What are the threats to competition in the digital world and how are consumers affected?What are the European Commission and national competition authorities doing to defend competition and consumers in the digital world? The goals of this paper were achieved using different scientific methods. The most widely used methods are analytical method, logical method, and comparative method. Due to the length of this paper, the nature of the work is necessarily selective. The paper also involves a study in the library of the EC and the library of Directorate-General for Competition (DG Comp). This paper is based on the legal status as of 31 December 2021.

3. Analysis and Problem Solution

3.1 Consumers in the context of competition before online platforms The definition of consumer in the relevant TFEU competition chapter does not contain the definition of consumer but indicates the existence of at least two groups of consumers — the consumer as an economic unit and the end consumer. Under Article 101(3) TFEU, an agreement, which contributes, inter

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