Topic: Digital markets

Romania’s Competition Council has opened an investigation into Sony over allegations it refused to allow rival distributors to sell activation codes for PlayStation-compatible games, forcing publishers to sell their products via the PlayStation Store.

31 May 2023

Germany’s Federal Cartel Office has discussed the possibility of breaking up Google’s online advertising business in its final sector inquiry report, as the country’s lawmakers prepare to give the agency new powers to order structural divestments after a market study.

31 May 2023

Austria’s Federal Competition Authority has allowed the national public broadcaster to purchase a majority stake in an online radio streaming service, provided it grants all licensed radio operators reasonable access to the platform.

31 May 2023

Microsoft has urged the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal to grant its application for a summer hearing challenging the national antitrust watchdog’s “outlier” decision to block its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard so as to remove any uncertainty over the deal.

30 May 2023

Rules forcing the European Commission to issue formal decisions when rejecting third-party complaints were deliberately excluded from the Digital Markets Act so as not to “further burden the enforcement” of the legislation, an EU official has said.

30 May 2023

The UK’s antitrust watchdog has said it intends to accept commitments proposed by Meta that would prevent it using rivals’ advertising data to improve its own products.

26 May 2023

The EU’s General Court has rejected an application by Meta to stop the European Commission gaining access to company documents as part of its probe into the social media giant’s data practices and classified ad service.

24 May 2023

Google has argued that it is complying with an order to open up payments on its application store in India and will push ahead with controversial changes despite a pending antitrust probe into the proposals and fierce opposition from developers.

19 May 2023

Intercontinental Exchange and Black Knight’s challenge to the constitutionality of the Federal Trade Commission’s internal tribunal is irrelevant to the agency’s challenge in federal court, the latter has said.

18 May 2023

The head of the UK’s antitrust enforcer has called on the government to prioritise a formal cooperation agreement with the European Commission to counter potential divergence on enforcement in digital markets.

16 May 2023