Politicisation as a trigger for change in legislation: the case of the Digital Markets Act (DMA)

This paper argues that politicisation can provide avenues for the EU to be subject to contestation in certain antitrust cases, which in turn can create opportunities for change and improvement in legislative processes as seen with the creation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a recently enacted regulation that aims to increase competition in the European digital markets. This is achieved through the prevention of large companies from exploiting their market power and the facilitation of entry for new market players. The regulation aims to provide the most comprehensive digital level playing field across Europe. In particular, it aims to regulate some of the world’s largest tech firms such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. This paper examines the general framework of the DMA in order to understand how this new legislation aims to keep Big Tech corporations in line with the new rules. More specifically, this study will analyse the extent to which previous politicised antitrust cases influenced the way in which the DMA was written. We argue that politicisation not only serves as a trigger to re-establish or revive debate and engagement in politics, but also to conceive regulatory solutions for the challenges posed by new emerging technologies. Thus, our analysis will draw links between law and policy to see whether the politicisation of antitrust cases can explain the way in which the regulatory framework of the DMA was drafted. In this way, we can see how the politicisation of EU antitrust cases may lead to change in EU regulatory processes.