On 15 December, the European Commission proposed the long-awaited Digital Services Act –  a key part of the plan to create a Europe that is ‘fit for the digital age’. The Digital Services Act (DSA) will endeavour to provide much needed clarity to the rules on platform responsibility, given the legal ambiguities coming from the 20-year-old e-Commerce Directive. The digital landscape has changed dramatically over the past two decades and the advent of online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter,...

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It might not feel like a New Year, as the pandemic continues to ravage most countries. On top of the human toll, the economic fallout will continue to depress activity in the first part of 2021.  However, policymakers throughout the G7 provided more stimulus in late 2020 and extended many emergency facilities well into the New Year.  This will help cushion the blow and help facilitate a stronger recovery later in the year. The two Senate seats in Georgia being...

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The debate about competition issues and unfair practices specific to online platforms and the appropriate tools to tackle them was taken a step further by the European Commission (‘Commission’), which presented two legislative proposals on 15 December 2020: The Digital Services Act (‘DSA’) and the Digital Markets Act (‘DMA’). While the former is intended to regulate online content and increase transparency and accountability, the latter is intended to ensure contestable and fair markets in the digital sector by imposing limits (and...

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In the first Weekly Roar of what’s going to be a great new year: The EU continues to wheel-and-deal, wariness remains for some persistent global supply chain roadblocks, blockchain continues its uphill fight for relevancy, why rail is cool again, and the obligatory international doom and gloom (with a little positive thrown in.) It’s 2021, so let’s go! With Brexit checked off the to-do list (sort of), the European Union has struck a trade deal with China. There is a lot of opposition...

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Split along partisan lines, the Federal Trade Commission (Commission) voted last week to issue Commentary on Vertical Merger Enforcement (Commentary). The Commentary intends to “provide greater transparency to the public regarding analysis of vertical mergers” by collecting in a single document the Commission’s past vertical merger cases and summarizing how it has analyzed potential anticompetitive effects in vertical transactions. The two Democratic commissioners dissented here just as they had in June 2020, with respect to the issuance of the...

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Christmas is a time for contemplation, and the proposals of the long-awaited Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act may give gatekeepers and other online intermediaries even more reason to be pensive this year. The proposals introduce more rules for them to abide by, while also providing greater safeguards to fair competition and online users. Even though it will likely be another year before the Acts become effective, online intermediaries may already wish to begin considering their internal processes and business policies...

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