EU Antitrust Chief Appeals for Global Approach Towards Big Tech

Europe’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, the architect of landmark guidelines to curb the ability of US tech giants, known as on Thursday for a worldwide method in direction of Big Tech to forestall firms benefiting from enforcement gaps.

Vestager, who has handed out billions of euros in fines to Alphabet’s Google and launched investigations into Apple, Amazon and Meta Platform’s Facebook, mentioned there was international settlement on the problems raised by massive digital platforms.

“This debate is no longer a hot topic amongst competition practitioners but it has strong political attention,” she advised a convention organised by the German Cartel Office. Vestager urged antitrust watchdogs all over the world to work collectively to deal with the problem.

“Close cooperation will be necessary because we will not be short of work and we will not be short of novel services or practices to look at,” she mentioned.

“It goes without saying that the more we, as an international competition community, are able to harmonise our approach, the less opportunity there will be for global tech giants to exploit enforcement gaps between our jurisdictions,” Vestager mentioned.

The US antitrust enforcers and a few US states are additionally investigating Google, Facebook and Apple. Big Tech can also be beneath fireplace in South Korea, India and Australia.

Earlier this week, EU antitrust regulators charged Apple with limiting rivals’ entry to its NFC chip expertise in a transfer that might lead to a hefty advantageous for the iPhone maker and drive it to open its cellular fee system to opponents.

The European Commission mentioned it had despatched a cost sheet often called an announcement of objections to Apple, detailing how the corporate had abused its dominant place in markets for cellular wallets on iOS units. Apple mentioned it might proceed to interact with the Commission.

© Thomson Reuters 2021