Periodically EMTC will post material from the third-party sources to keep you apprised of e-commerce and digital economy developments around the world. One such source is Platform Economy Insights (PEI) published by our friend, Brian Bieron, who has years of experience working on digital economy public policy issues. We recommend companies engaged in e-commerce for both physical and digital goods subscribe to informational feeds on these topics. PEI is a good service because it provides context and analysis to understand news reports. Below is a headline about an important development:
PEI sites a report in the Financial Times on “European Council Agrees on DMA and DSA Plans and Vestager Presses Forward” and provides the following summary:
In Brief – The Council of Europe, the EU’s legislative body made up of the bloc’s 27 Member States, has agreed on draft language for the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), two landmark bills rewriting the rules of the digital economy. The DSA is a comprehensive update of the EU’s eCommerce Directive that provides the legal framework for digital platforms in Europe and aims to regulate better policing of harmful content by platforms. The DMA aims to address competition concerns in the digital economy that are attributed to the largest “gatekeeper” platforms. The European Commission unveiled drafts of both last December and they have been under review in the European Parliament and in the Member States, who meet in the Council. (Links to legislative schedules for DSA and DMA.) Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, a leader on digital policy on the European Commission as well as the bloc’s top antitrust official, followed up the recent Council actions that largely backed the Commission’s DSA and DMA drafts by calling for the Parliament to also conclude work quickly, counseling those who are concerned with digital platforms that “Perfect not be the enemy of very, very good.”
