Abstract

Digital platforms play a pivotal role in today’s economy, increasing the size of the markets and their productive and allocative efficiency. The risks of an increasing concentration of resources and market power in the hands of few global platforms have been addressed solely by competition law enforcement, which has not been considered to be completely effective. The regulatory framework under discussion in Europe «codifies» the antitrust remedies in the abuse of the dominant position’s main cases against platforms, by defining a set of detailed ex-ante obligations to be applied by the European Commission. This paper describes the rationale, the criticalities, and some prospects of evolution of this design, mainly focusing on the improvements obtainable in the Dma either by introducing some (ex-ante or ex-post) verification of obligations’ efficiency and proportionality, or by adopting an ad hoc regulatory approach similar to what enacted in the Uk. Furthermore, this paper emphasises the efficient institutional design based on an enforcement centralisation at Eu level, to be somehow mitigated with a greater weight given to a body horizontally coordinating national Authorities. Finally, the essay underlines that Dma should be strictly coordinated with all other pieces of the mosaic that make up the rules of the digital ecosystem legislative framework, especially with those governing personal (and non-personal) data, which represent one of the most problematic aspects of digital markets in terms of fairness and contestability.