Digital Competition Law

Compliance with competition law in the digital environment has practically become a discipline in its own right. As is well known, the European Commission is at the forefront globally in competition law enforcement in the digital sector, doing so through three avenues:

• By initiating exhaustive investigations into the main tech companies, targeting a large number of business and operational practices. The Commission has imposed record fines for abuses of dominant position and reached agreements with commitments with the Big Tech companies, substantially affecting how platforms operate in Europe.
• By taking an innovative approach towards economic concentrations in the digital sector (Microsoft/LinkedIn, Google/Fitbit, Microsoft/Activision and Amazon/iRobot, among many others), through which new theories of harm have been developed that other jurisdictions are already implementing.
• Most notably, by applying the Digital Markets Act (DMA). This is an unprecedented regulation globally that imposes specific ex ante rules of conduct on digital gatekeepers in order to create a more open, contestable and competitive digital market. These obligations will have a significant impact on the business model of the – to date – six gatekeepers and how they operate in the European market.

Our professional and academic experience in this field is extensive and diverse. The team’s competition law specialists have been involved in a wide range of cases (before the European Commission and Spain’s National Markets and Competition Commission) on the application of competition law in the digital economy from various angles. We have also advised on the practical implications of the DMA, even before it came into force. We also teach digital competition law in a variety of courses and master’s programmes.