Europe's first legislative proposal addressing the digital
economy and related competition issues is one step closer to
becoming a reality: In September 2020, the German government
approved the highly anticipated 10th amendment to the German Act
against Restraints of Competition (ARC).
While some revisions arise from EU Directive 2019/1 to
strengthen the competition authorities of the EU Member States (ECN+ Directive), the
main objective of the proposal—also called the
"Digitalization Act"—is to create a new antitrust
framework for the digital economy. Accordingly, the draft bill will
revamp the law on abuse of dominance by addressing issues such as
data access and data portability, cross-market data collection, and
"intermediation power" of digital platforms. In addition,
significant amendments in the areas of merger control, cartel
investigations and cartel damages are being introduced.
