🚨 contrast competition update 🚨

The European Commission (EC) adopted four important decisions under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) which will impact both consumers and businesses operating through large online platforms:

• The EC designated Booking as the 8th gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for its online intermediation service Booking.com. This follows Booking’s self-assessment submitted on 1 March 2024 that it meets the relevant quantitative thresholds. This means that Booking now has 6 months to comply with the relevant obligations under the DMA and submit a detailed compliance report outlining the measures taken to comply with each DMA obligation. However, some DMA obligations also start applying with immediate effect.

• The EC adopted two decisions regarding X Ads and TikTok Ads in which it refrained from designating these as important gateways under the DMA. This followed rebuttal arguments from both X and Bytedance (parent company of TikTok) that these core platform services (CPS) did not constitute an important gateway between businesses and consumers despite meeting the DMA’s quantitative thresholds.

• The EC also opened a market investigation to assess the rebuttal arguments submitted by X in relation to its online social networking service (formerly Twitter). X also argues that its online social networking service does not constitute an important gateway between businesses and consumers despite meeting the DMA’s quantitative thresholds. The market investigation should be concluded within the next five months.

For more information on these recent developments, you can consult the press release of the EC here.

You can read more about the DMA in detail in our #inthepicture.

Questions? Contact our competition partners Filip Tuytschaever, Herlinde Burez or Sebastien Engelen, or your usual contact at contrast.

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