Charting the course of DMA’s private enforcement: unveiling the forum shopping challenge

ABSTRACT

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) seeks to oversee major digital platforms – “gatekeepers,” and their core platform services, aiming to break down barriers to competition enforcement within digital realm. Despite the DMA's absence of explicit mention of private enforcement, its spirit is clearly embedded within the framework. Several EU Member States have actively encouraged private enforcement of the DMA within their legislative processes. Considering the individual initiatives by the EU Member States, this paper addresses a concern: how to secure uniformity and consistency in the private enforcement of the DMA across the EU? This challenge is exacerbated by the looming threat of forum shopping, wherein plaintiffs strategically select jurisdictions to gain perceived advantages. As a solution, this paper advocates for the adoption of harmonization measures that strike a delicate balance between legal diversity and ensuring diligent oversight within the framework of private enforcement under the DMA.

KEYWORDS:

• Gatekeepers
• private enforcement
• digital platforms
• DMA
• forum-shopping
• competition enforcement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 September 2022 on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector and amending Directives (EU) 2019/1937 and (EU) 2020/1828, [2022] OJ L 265/1 (hereinafter “DMA”).

2 Directive 2014/104/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 November 2014 on certain rules governing actions for damages under national law for infringements of the competition law provisions of the Member States and of the European Union, [2014] OJ L 349/1 (hereinafter: Damages Directive).

3 Giulia Rurali and Martin Seegers, Private Enforcement of the EU Digital Markets Act: The Way Ahead after Going Live (Kluwer Competition Law Blog, 20 June 2023) <https://competitionlawblog.kluwercompetitionlaw.com/2023/06/20/private-enforcement-of-the-eu-digital-markets-act-the-way-ahead-after-going-live/#:~:text=German%20draft%20rules%20for%20the,private%20enforcement%20of%20the%20DMA> accessed 13 November 2023.

4 Non-paper: Strengthening the digital markets act and its enforcement <https://www.permanentrepresentations.nl/binaries/nlatio/documenten/publications/2021/05/27/strengthening-the-digital-markets-act-and-its-enforcement/Non-paper+DMA.pdf> accessed 13 November 2023.

5 BMWK, Draft 11th amendment of the GWB, 20.09.2022, available at: <https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Meldung/2022/20220920-bmwk-legt-entwurf-zur-verscharfung-des-wettbewerbsrechts-vor.html>, Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen (hereinafter GWB), Article 32. <https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gwb/__32g.html> accessed 13 November 2023.

6 DMA, Recital 14, Article 2 (2).

7 DMA, Recital 2.

8 DMA, Article 3.

9 Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, 13 December 2007, [2008] OJ C115/01, <https://data.europa.eu/eli/treaty/teu_2012/oj>.

10 DMA, Recital 7.

11 Assimakis Komninos, The Digital Markets Act and Private Enforcement: Proposals for an Optimal System of Enforcement (August 31, 2021) in Eleanor M. Fox Liber Amicorum, Antitrust Ambassador to the World (Concurrences, 2021), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3914932 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3914932, p. 426.

12 Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/814, C/2023/2530 (14 April 2023) on detailed arrangements for the conduct of certain proceedings by the Commission pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA relevance).

13 Kai Hüschelrath and Heike Schweitzer (eds), Public and Private Enforcement of Competition Law in Europe (ZEW Studies, no 48, 2014) 1.

14 ibid.

15 Damages Directive, Recital 6.

16 Margrethe Vestager, Competition in a Digital Age (speech delivered at the European Internet Forum, 17 March 2021).

17 See: Heike Schweitzer, The Art to Make Gatekeeper Positions Contestable and the Challenge to Know What Is Fair (2021) SSRN https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3837341.

18 Case C–253/00, Antonio Muñoz y Cia SA and Superior Fruiticola SA v. Frumar Limited and Redbridge Produce Marketing Limited, Opinion of AG Geelhoed, ECLI:EU:C:2001:697, [2001] ECLI:EU:C:2001:697, paragraph 37.

19 See: Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Van Gend en Loos v Netherlands Inland Revenue Administration – the fundamental principle of direct effect, see also: Judgment of 10 November 1992, Hansa Fleisch Ernst Mundt GmbH & Co. KG v Landrat des Kreises Schleswig-Flensburg, C-156/91, ECLI:EU:C:1992:423.

20 Supra note 11, 177–178.

21 Courage Ltd v. Bernard Crehan (Case C-453/99, ECLI:EU:C:2001:465).

22 Antonio Muñoz y Cia SA and Superior Fruiticola SA v. Frumar Limited and Redbridge Produce Marketing Limited (Case C-253/00, ECLI:EU:C:2002:497) paragraph 27.

23 NV Algemene Transport- en Expeditie Onderneming van Gend & Loos v Netherlands Inland Revenue Administration (Judgment of the Court of 5 February 1963, Case 26-62).

24 ibid 429.

25 Rupprecht Podszun, Philipp Bongartz and Sarah Langenstein, Proposals on How to Improve the Digital Markets Act (February 18, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3788571 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3788571, p 9.

26 European Commission, Questions and Answers: Digital Markets Act: Ensuring Fair and Open Digital Markets (31 Oct. 2022), <https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_20_2349> accessed 13 November 2023.

27 DMA, Article 39 (1).

28 DMA, Article 39 (2).

29 DMA, Article 39 (3).

30 Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty (Text with EEA relevance).

31 Directive (EU) 2020/1828 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2020 on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers and repealing Directive 2009/22/EC (Text with EEA relevance).

32 DMA, Recital 104.

33 Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on a Single Market For Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (Digital Services Act) (Text with EEA relevance).

34 Bundeskartellamt, Joint paper of the heads of the national competition authorities of the European Union (23/06/2021), <https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Publikation/EN/Others/DMA_ECN_Paper.html?nn=3591568> accessed 13 November 2023.

35 ibid.

36 ‘“Friends of an Effective Digital Markets Act” – France, Germany and Netherlands Make Far-Reaching Proposals to Overhaul Draft Digital Markets Act’ (NOW) <https://cms-lawnow.com/en/ealerts/2021/05/friends-of-an-effective-digital-markets-act-france-germany-and-netherlands-make-far-reaching-proposals-to-overhaul-draft-digital-markets-act> accessed 13 November 2023.

37 GWB, 33(1).

38 GWB, 33 (g).

39 GWB, 33(h)(6).

40 GWB, 87 and 89.

41 K&L Gates, 11th Amendment to the German Competition Act (GWB): New Powers of Intervention for the Bundeskartellamt, Creating New Challenges for Companies, (November 7, 2023) <https://www.klgates.com/11th-Amendment-to-the-German-Competition-Act-GWB-New-Powers-of-Intervention-for-the-Bundeskartellamt-Creating-New-Challenges-for-Companies-11-7-2023> accessed 13 November 2023.

42 Digital Markets Regulation Implementation Act (Digital Markets Act) <https://www.internetconsultatie.nl/uitvoeringswetdma/b1> accessed 13 November 2023.

43 Lawrence Collins, Contractual Obligations: The EEC Preliminary Draft Convention on Private International Law (1976) 25 I.C.L.Q. 35, 36.

44 Robert Maloy, ‘Forum Shopping? What’s Wrong with that?’ (2005) 24(1) Quinnipiac Law Review 25.

45 Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (recast) (Hereinafter “Brussels I Regulation”).

46 Brussels I Regulation, Recital 15.

47 Robert Thomas Currie, ‘Telfer, Forum Shopping and the Private Enforcement of EU Competition Law: is Forum Shopping a Dead Letter?’ (PhD thesis, University of Glasgow 2017), http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8002/ p. 50.

48 ibid 52–53.

49 Fiona Shevill v Presse Alliance SA (Case 68/93) [1995] E.C.R. I-415.

50 The so-called principle of ubiquity is strongly embedded in the Brussels I Regulation Article 7 (2).

51 See: Ulrich Magnus, Peter Mankowski and Alfonso-Luis Calvo Caravaca, Brussels I Regulation (European Law Publishing 2007) para 204.

52 Lena Hornkohl, The Damages Directive 6 Years Later: The Commission Published a Report on the 2014 Damages Directive (Kluwer Competition Law Blog, 15 December 2020) <https://competitionlawblog.kluwercompetitionlaw.com/2020/12/15/the-damages-directive-6-years-later-the-commission-published-a-report-on-the-2014-damages-directive/> accessed 13 November 2023.

53 Supra note 48, p. 26.

54 Tomas Balciunas and Jasper P. Sluijs, The Case for Harmonizing Fault in Private Enforcement of EU Competition Law (December 16, 2020), SSRN https://ssrn.com/abstract=3750240 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3750240, p. 7.