By
Reuters
Printed
March 9, 2025
Europe’s new tech rule goals to maintain digital markets open and isn’t focused at U.S. tech giants, EU antitrust and tech chiefs informed U.S. congressmen, reminding them that U.S. enforcers have lately additionally cracked down on these corporations.
Reuters
The feedback by EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera and EU tech chief Henna Virkkunnen got here after U.S. Home Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and Scott Fitzgerald, chairman of the subcommittee on the executive state, regulatory reform and antitrust demanded clarifications on the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
“The DMA does not target U.S. companies,” Ribera and Virkkunnen wrote in a joint letter dated March 6 to Jordan and Fitzgerald seen by Reuters.
“It applies to all companies which fulfil the clearly defined criteria for being designated as a gatekeeper in the European Union irrespective of where they are headquartered,” they stated.Ribera and Virkkunnen additionally dismissed criticism that the DMA hinders innovation.
“By preventing gatekeepers from engaging in unfair practices vis-à-vis smaller companies, the DMA keeps the door open to the next wave of innovation in vital digital markets,” they stated.
They pointed to comparable issues of unfair practices that led to U.S. antitrust investigations and lawsuits filed underneath the primary Trump administration and different current actions towards Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, Apple and Meta Platforms.
Ribera and Virkkunnen additionally rejected claims that EU antitrust fines are a type of European tax on American corporations. U.S. President Donald Trump in a memorandum final month threatened to impose tariffs towards nations which impose fines on U.S. corporations.
“The objective of DMA enforcement, as in any other piece of EU law, is to ensure compliance – not to issue fines. Possible sanctions, also common to U.S. laws and regulations, are not an end in themselves but a prerequisite for credible engagement,” they stated.
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