Julian Nowag and Anna Tzanaki on The Institutional Framework of the Digital Markets Act: a novel but thoughtful experiment in regulatory design? (Journal of European Competition Law & Practice)

"The institutional framework of the Digital Markets Act: a novel but thoughtful experiment in regulatory design?"
Anna Tzanaki, Julian Nowag
Journal of European Competition Law & Practice
Published online: March 2026

Key Points: 

• By comparison to the enforcement-based model of antitrust that relies on punishment, this article sheds light on the new more complex and hybrid institutional structure of the Digital Markets Act (‘DMA’) that is focused on ‘cooperative’ compliance based on dialogue between regulator and regulated firms and third parties at first instance and leaves the ‘punitive’ model of enforcement as an option of last resort.
• The Commission as the key institutional actor has discretion to escalate or deescalate the process of the DMA’s implementation along this compliance–enforcement continuum through different instruments.
• The central role of the Commission is supported and counterbalanced by a wide array of decentralized institutional actors and procedures, which render the DMA’s institutional architecture less hierarchical and more participatory and flexible.
• The openness in the DMA’s procedural and institutional design effectively complements the closed nature of its substantive obligations imposed on digital gatekeepers.

Julian Nowag on Global Antitrust and Sustainability: Law, Economics, Enforcement (Oxford University Press)

Global Antitrust and Sustainability: Law, Economics, Enforcement
Julian Nowag
Oxford University Press
Published online: September 2025

Abstract: Sustainability is a topic that is also gaining in importance for antitrust and competition authorities. The book investigates how competition law and competition authorities around the world deal with sustainability. It covers, economics, law, and enforcement matters. The book also sets out the basics of the concept of sustainability that are necessary for competition lawyers to work with such matters. It explores what economics has to say about the relationship between sustainability and competition. In the legal part, the book covers numerous jurisdictions ranging from developed to developing countries and the work of established and newer agencies. It investigates how competition law enforcement can foster sustainability and also discusses the legal tools available to ensure that competition law enforcement does not unnecessarily hinder sustainability activities by private actors. In a separate chapter, process matters and enforcement tools are considered, in particular those that are available to competition agencies to foster sustainability.

Julian Nowag and Carla Valeria Patiño on Enough of Fairness: Pre-Emption and the DMA (new book chapter)

"Enough of Fairness: Pre-Emption and the DMA"
Julian Nowag and Carla Valeria Patiño
in Annegret Engel(ed),Xavier Groussot(ed),Gunnar Thor Petursson(ed),New Directions in Digitalisation: Perspectives from EU Competition Law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights,(Springer, November 2024),pp. 61 - 74
Published online: November 2024

Abstract: This chapter looks at the DMA through the prism of pre-emption and the relationship between EU and national law. It explains the fundamentals of pre-emption in EU law and shows the consequences for the DMA and national rules that are to ensure fairness in the digital market space. It argues that fairness in the digital market with regard to business users and consumers has been exhaustively regulated by the DMA. Thus, existing and future national rules that aim to address additional fairness matters are pre-empted and cannot be applied to gatekeepers. The only option Member States have is to introduce further fairness related matters into their competition laws which elevates the well-known debates about the relationship between competition law and fairness to a new level.

HKU Law Welcomes Prof. Julian Nowag

Welcome to Prof. Julian Nowag, who joins the Faculty of Law as an Associate Professor.

Julian is an Associate Professor at HKU and Lund University, Sweden, specializing in competition law. He is a leading scholar in sustainability and is currently working on the intersection between AI and competition. His recent work with Thomas K Cheng on  Algorithmic Predation and Exclusion won a Concurrence Award in 2023. Julian is also an Associate at the Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy and serves as a managing editor of The Journal for Antitrust Enforcement (OUP). He has authored and edited several books, including Environmental Integration in Competition and Free-Movement Laws  (OUP 2016), Intersections Between Corporate and Antitrust Law (eds. with Marco Corradi) (CUP 2024), Research Handbook on Sustainability and Competition Law  (ed) (Edward Elgar 2024), and Global Antitrust and Sustainability: law, economics, enforcement (OUP forthcoming 2024/25). 

Julian earned his Master’s degree (MSt) and doctorate (DPhil) from the University of Oxford. He also completed an LLM in European Legal Studies at Durham University and undergraduate law studies in Germany and Austria. At Lund University, he was the director of the master’s programme in European Business Law and taught courses on competition and various areas of EU law. Julian also taught EU law and competition law at Oxford and gave lectures and seminars on EU law, comparative law, and competition law in various European, Asian, and Latin American universities and institutions.

Julian is a qualified lawyer in Germany, with professional training that focused on competition law. He completed placements at the German Competition Authority’s international co-operation unit, the European Commission (DG Comp, cartels unit), and Allen & Overy’s German Antitrust unit in Hamburg. 

Julian can be found on LinkedIn, SSRN, and Twitter/X.