A New Frontier of Digital Competition Law

Over the last decade, the topic of the economic regulation of the digital economy has developed in a notable way. The emergence of digital platforms and the rapidly improved business models have had both positive and negative effects on the market, which have ultimately triggered various policy initiatives to control digital platforms. Because of the difficulties of enforcing competition law against large platforms, some critics argue for new economic regulations that are very formalistic. In particular, the European competition regime has taken an enthusiastic approach against multinational platform undertakings by vigorously applying its competition law and by providing proposals for digital regulation, such as the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act. Although it is possible to apply the existing competition rule of abuse of market dominance to digital undertakings, the EU regime has developed new digital regulations. This radical development may lead to possible harms to consumer welfare because the European regulatory reform may impede the development of competition case law. The main purpose of this article is to discuss the topic of digital regulation and the problem of excessive enforcement, especially where there is a notable intersection amongst competition, data protection and consumer protection law.