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.