On 15 December 2021, the European Parliament adopted an amendment to the EU Commission’s legislative proposal for a regulation on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector (Digital Markets Act, DMA) by 642 votes to 8 with 46 abstentions. Among other things, the EU Parliament extended the scope of the DMA, made changes to thresholds, adapted prohibitions and adopted new provisions, e.g. for personalised advertising and interoperability of services. It also made changes to the regulation of so-called “killer acquisitions” and to procedural aspects at the level of EU and national competition authorities as can be seen from the publicly available documents.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) – the parallel proposal to regulate online platforms, which includes rules for dealing with illegal content and algorithms – was adopted by the European Parliament a few weeks later on 20 January 2022 by 530 votes to 78 with 80 abstentions. The Members of Parliament made some amendments to the EU Commission’s legislative proposal too: Among other things, it partially excluded SMEs from its scope, but added a ban on “nudging” and the possibility of a representative action.

In parallel, the Council of the EU, i.e. the second chamber in the EU legislative process, also adopted the texts with its respective amendments to the European Commission’s legislative proposal. Both texts adopted by the Council and the European Parliament now form the mandate for the upcoming trialogue negotiations, which will begin in the next few weeks. It can therefore be expected that the definitive texts of the DMA and the DSA will be finalised by summer 2022.