Regulating Digital Platforms Regulating Digital Platforms - The Interplay Between EU Competition Law and the Digital Markets Act
(2025) HARN63 20251Department of Business Law
- Abstract (Swedish)
- The rise of digital services has reshaped the EU internal digital market and revealed significant shortcomings in EU competition law. In response, the EU introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA), an ex-ante sector-specific legislative approach to address these issues. The DMA’s aim is to complement traditional competition law by addressing fairness and contestability within the internal market through targeting significant platform providers called gatekeepers. This thesis explores whether the DMA and EU competition law reflect a complementary regulatory framework or whether they risk creating normative, institutional or functional conflicts in the governance of digital platforms. Using a legal dogmatic method grounded in Union law, the... (More)
- The rise of digital services has reshaped the EU internal digital market and revealed significant shortcomings in EU competition law. In response, the EU introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA), an ex-ante sector-specific legislative approach to address these issues. The DMA’s aim is to complement traditional competition law by addressing fairness and contestability within the internal market through targeting significant platform providers called gatekeepers. This thesis explores whether the DMA and EU competition law reflect a complementary regulatory framework or whether they risk creating normative, institutional or functional conflicts in the governance of digital platforms. Using a legal dogmatic method grounded in Union law, the thesis analyses primary and secondary sources of Article 101 and 102 TFEU, the DMA, CJEU case law and legislative preparatory work. The findings show that while both frameworks aim to achieve similar goals, they differ in approach. Rules and Obligations set out in the DMA must be followed automatically as soon as the gatekeeper criteria is fulfilled. Thus, the DMA’s “one size fits all” approach impacts much faster than the antitrust-based system, under which remedies are imposed only after a case-by-case assessment. Although the frameworks are complementary in principle, tensions remain in their practical implementation. The DMA’s centralised enforcement under the Commission and the vagueness of key concepts, such as fairness and self-preferencing, pose challenges to legal certainty, proportionality and institutional legitimacy. These findings suggest the need for clearer fairness benchmarks, improved coordination with NCAs and a more balanced governance model. If effectively integrated, these frameworks could enhance the regulation of digital markets and overall strengthen the internal market. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9189543
- author
- Jussila, Noona LU and Oezocak, Aylin Uemmuehan LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- HARN63 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- DMA, EU Competition Law, Legal Interplay, Ex-Ante, Ex-Post, Ne Bis In Idem, Enforcement, Digital Markets
- language
- English
- id
- 9189543
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-11 09:28:30
- date last changed
- 2025-06-11 09:28:30
@misc{9189543,
abstract = {{The rise of digital services has reshaped the EU internal digital market and revealed significant shortcomings in EU competition law. In response, the EU introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA), an ex-ante sector-specific legislative approach to address these issues. The DMA’s aim is to complement traditional competition law by addressing fairness and contestability within the internal market through targeting significant platform providers called gatekeepers. This thesis explores whether the DMA and EU competition law reflect a complementary regulatory framework or whether they risk creating normative, institutional or functional conflicts in the governance of digital platforms. Using a legal dogmatic method grounded in Union law, the thesis analyses primary and secondary sources of Article 101 and 102 TFEU, the DMA, CJEU case law and legislative preparatory work. The findings show that while both frameworks aim to achieve similar goals, they differ in approach. Rules and Obligations set out in the DMA must be followed automatically as soon as the gatekeeper criteria is fulfilled. Thus, the DMA’s “one size fits all” approach impacts much faster than the antitrust-based system, under which remedies are imposed only after a case-by-case assessment. Although the frameworks are complementary in principle, tensions remain in their practical implementation. The DMA’s centralised enforcement under the Commission and the vagueness of key concepts, such as fairness and self-preferencing, pose challenges to legal certainty, proportionality and institutional legitimacy. These findings suggest the need for clearer fairness benchmarks, improved coordination with NCAs and a more balanced governance model. If effectively integrated, these frameworks could enhance the regulation of digital markets and overall strengthen the internal market.}},
author = {{Jussila, Noona and Oezocak, Aylin Uemmuehan}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Regulating Digital Platforms Regulating Digital Platforms - The Interplay Between EU Competition Law and the Digital Markets Act}},
year = {{2025}},
}