EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

to be supplemented (especially by the ex-ante requirements addressed to the biggest players in the digital economy through specific regulations such as the EU Digital Markets Act) are common to many of the contributions in this proceedings. The claim that such focused contributions keep a finger on the pulse of the times was confirmed by developments immediately after the conference: in February 2022, the European Commission adopted the Data Act proposal, an important step towards the creation of a single European market for data, based primarily on secure data sharing. This has unmissable competitive implications, as BigTechs will not be able to deny smaller and medium-sized competitors’ access to the client data they acquire. Indeed, it is Big Data, and the importance of processing and sharing it for competition, that is the focus of a number of papers in the pages of this proceedings. Subsequently, in March 2023, the EU Council and the European Parliament reached agreement on the Digital Markets Act proposal, arguably the most important new regulation in terms of ensuring competition in the virtual digital economy. The new category of internet gatekeepers will apparently already be regulated from 1 January 2023 by an ex-ante applied regulation, prohibiting them from certain and in turn imposing on them certain desirable actions. The problems associated with this novelty, which will operate in parallel with the classic antitrust provisions of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, are also given due attention in the proceedings. The range of competition „hot topics“ brought about by the digitalization of the economy and the economic power of its gatekeepers naturally also includes contributions of a more general focus (determination of dominance, mergers and acquisitions, or protection of consumer interests in the digital economy, etc. ) or those dealing with the latest decisions in the „GAFA quartet“ cases (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), the study of the approach of other jurisdictions (China) and, of course, the competitive aspects of the development of the sharing economy, be it services (Uber) or their infrastructure (networks)... 2. Digitalisation issues therefore proved to be a priority topic of the conference. However, it cannot be described as the „dominant“ topic, as the second place (represented by 6-8 papers) was shared by several other topics. Among them, sustainability, especially environmental but also social, thus also qualifies as an absolute hot topic. In her speech at the conference, Commissioner Vestager repeatedly stressed that the EU is developing competition rules for „the green and digital future“ and that the most urgent aspect of the current renewal of rules will be to „build a greener European Economy“. In her order of priorities, „green antitrust“ was thus seemingly placed ahead of „digital antitrust“, which

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