Month: March 2021
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The CJEU’s ruling on Slovak Telekom, and what it means for cases involving dominant digital platforms
Last week the CJEU delivered its judgment in case C-165/19 P dismissing the appeal brought by Slovak Telekom (“ST”) against the judgment of the General Court of 13 December 2018 (T‑851/14). Damien was representing ST alongside Robert O’Donoghue from Brick Court Chambers. The case concerns a 2014 infringement decision of the Commission, whereby the latter found…
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Apple and Google’s lowering of app store fees to “help” developers : Separating the wheat from the chaff
App developers that sell “digital goods or services” on the App Store or Google Play must use these app stores’ in-app payment solutions (respectively called In-App Purchase or “IAP” in the case of the App Store and Google Play Billing or “GPB” in the case of Google Play). The mandatory use of IAP or GPB…
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The latest around Google and the Privacy Sandbox
On Monday the US State AGs filed an amended complaint against Google with respect to ad tech, joined by five additional States. (Reminder: the State AGs sued Google in December 2020, arguing that the tech company has engaged in anticompetitive conduct and even entered into an unlawful agreement with Facebook to restrict competition in the…
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Competition law and digital markets : Do we need a DG COMP 2.0 ?
In an earlier blog post, I discussed what could, or perhaps should, be the role of EU competition law in a post-DMA environment. That is an important question considering that if the DMA proposal is adopted, a range of issues that are traditionally addressed under EU competition rules will (also or instead) be addressed under…
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Unpacking Google’s latest blog post on web tracking
Yesterday Google published a blog post regarding its approach to web tracking once third-party cookies are phased out in Chrome. The post was the talk of the day all over Twitter and the mainstream press, and certain commentators even suggested that Google has pledged to stop selling ads based on individual web browsing (a monumental…
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Should all digital gatekeepers be subject to the same obligations under the DMA proposal?
While many companies active in digital markets support the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) proposal, a recurrent concern comes from the fact that the obligations contained in Articles 5 and 6 of the proposal will in principle apply to all gatekeepers independently of the core platform service (“CPS”) they deliver and their business model. While Article…