Regulation 2022/1925 came into force on November 1.

Regulation 2022/1925 came into force on November 1.
On October 12, Regulation 2022/1925, commonly known as the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union. Focusing on digital platforms, the European Commission seeks to regulate the activities of companies in the digital sector. Although it formally came into force on November 1, 2022, implementation will not begin until May 2, 2023. This post analyzes the main keys to the new Regulation.
Regulation 2022/1925 on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector, or the Digital Markets Act, is the new legislative instrument to regulate the activity of certain digital platforms in the EU. For this purpose, the Regulation lays down a series of rules conferring greater control powers on the European Commission to prevent anti-competitive practices.
The new Regulation begins by defining its subjective scope of application—that is, to whom it will apply. It does so through the concept of “gatekeeper”.
An undertaking will be designated as gatekeeper if it (i) has a significant impact on the internal market; (ii) provides a core platform service which serves as a gateway for business users to reach end users; and (iii) enjoys an entrenched and durable position or it is foreseeable that it will enjoy such a position in the near future.
Given the lack of specificity of the above requirements, the articles of the Regulation later specify some of these definitions.
Gatekeepers are not automatically designated. Therefore, companies owning platforms that meet the Regulation requirements must inform the European Commission, which will make the designation after hearing the company.
Also, the Regulation empowers the Commission to designate a company as a gatekeeper even if it does not comply with the notification obligation—provided that it exceeds the relevant thresholds according to a market study.
Likewise, the Commission may also designate as a gatekeeper a company that meets the requirements even if it does not exceed the established thresholds.
After defining the criteria for designating a company as a gatekeeper, the DMA sets out a series of obligations and prohibitions, the most important of which are the following:
The Regulation also includes an article on merger control: regardless of whether the transaction is notifiable under the Merger Control Regulation or national law, gatekeepers must inform the European Commission, on a precautionary basis, of any concentration in which the merging entities or the resulting company provide services in the digital sector or enable the collection of data.
In principle, the Commission does not have the power to prohibit or impose commitments on concentrations notified under this procedure. However, it may share the information received with Member States' national competition authorities, so that they can request the Commission to examine the concentration in accordance with article 22 of the Merger Regulation. Therefore, even if the concentration does not meet the thresholds, the Commission may still end up examining the concentration if requested to do so by one or more national competition authorities.
With respect to the penalty regime, the fines for non-compliance with the above positive and negative obligations are up to 10% of the total worldwide turnover of the company in the preceding financial year—and up to 20% in the event of recidivism.
The Commission may also impose fines of up to 1% of the total worldwide turnover of the company in the previous year when (i) it fails to notify that it meets the thresholds to be designated as gatekeeper; (ii) it fails to provide the information necessary for the Commission to verify the designation of the company as a gatekeeper; and (iii) the information provided in different contexts (e.g., audit, inspection, mergers) is incorrect, misleading or incomplete, among others.
Indicate your preferences to receive email alerts on specific areas of interest
Let us know your interests and how often you wish to receive our legal alerts:
Choose areas of interestWe use our own cookies and third-party analytics technologies to identify your browsing habits and be able to offer our contents based on your interests, while improving your security. For more information, select "more information" to access our Cookies policy to enable or disable cookies at any time.
More information