Digital Markets Act: European Commission designates its first Gatekeepers

The European Commission has announced the designation of gatekeepers under the DMA.

The designated companies are:

• Alphabet
• Amazon
• Apple
• ByteDance
• Meta
• Microsoft

In total, 22 core platform services provided by gatekeepers have been designated. The six gatekeepers will now have six months to demonstrate their compliance with the list of dos and don’ts in the DMA for each of their designated core platform services.

At the outset, designated gatekeepers must immediately appoint a compliance officer and inform the European Commission of any planned merger or acquisition.

Notably, the Commission concluded that, although Gmail, Outlook.com and Samsung Internet Browser meet the thresholds under the DMA to qualify as a gatekeeper, Alphabet, Microsoft and Samsung provided sufficiently justified arguments showing that these services do not qualify as gateways for the respective core platform services.

In parallel, the Commission has opened four market investigations to further assess Microsoft's and Apple's submissions arguing that, despite meeting the thresholds, some of their core platform services do not qualify as gateways:

• Microsoft: Bing, Edge and Microsoft Advertising
• Apple: iMessage

Additionally, the Commission has opened a market investigation to further assess whether Apple's iPadOS should be designated as gatekeeper, despite not meeting the thresholds. Under the DMA, this investigation should be completed within a maximum of 12 months.

The challenge of enforcement will go to Commissioner Didier Reynders, who takes over DG Competition, and Commissioner Vera Jourová, who takes over "Europe fit for the Digital Age" from EVP Margrethe Vestager, who is leaving the European Commission in her candidacy for president of the European Investment Bank.

For more information contact Francine Cunningham.

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