International Center for Law & Economics & Royal Holloway University: London DMCC Roundtable
About:
The roundtable convened practitioners, academics, and other competition professionals for two linked discussions: Panel 1 assessed the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC) against its intellectual roots and early implementation by the CMA’s Digital Markets Unit (DMU); Panel 2 broadened the lens to AI, the U.S. policy posture under Trump, and Draghi’s report on European competitiveness, and how these will shape the UK regime.
Overview:
Panel 1 — The regime’s anchors and early line‑drawing.
Participants repeatedly returned to the Furman Review’s lodestars (not least because of one of the report’s co-authors, Philip Marsden)—a focus on market access (gateways/bottlenecks) and retention of the consumer‑welfare standard—as the benchmark for judging designations and conduct rules. Several speakers stressed that Parliament deliberately preserved conventional tools (e.g., a market‑power test for certain conduct under Section 20) and that CMA guidance should reflect rather than dilute that legislative choice.
From there, discussions turned to designations. Attendees questioned whether current practice leans too heavily on asymmetric dependency and relatively static analyses, leading to overdesignation of firms that are large but whose market positions are not entrenched.
A focal case study was the DMU’s treatment of Google’s AI Overviews as part of general search—an explicitly forward‑looking step that some welcomed as necessary to avoid regulating “the past,” while others cautioned that such breadth may negatively affect the deployment of these overviews, leading to conduct requirements that miss where competitive pressure is actually shifting.
Speakers also flagged roadmaps that repeatedly promise to “look at AI,” noting that this can expand uncertainty if not paired with clearer “not‑pursued” boundaries; several warned of lobbying dynamics, especially among legacy media businesses, that risk redirecting the regime toward rent reallocation rather than contestability.
On speed and capacity, views diverged. Some argued the CMA moved swiftly once empowered—facilitated by earlier market work in search and mobile ecosystems—while others cautioned that the real test will be new designations from a standing start (for example, in cloud), where the temptation (for better or for worse) will be to revert to prolonged market studies.
Panel 2 — AI, Trump, and Draghi/competitiveness.
On AI, participants agreed it is a boundary case that complicates demarcation of core services. Participants anticipated two kinds of effects to monitor: high‑salience delays/degradations (features not launched or launched with caveats in the UK/EU) and low‑visibility chilling (planned deployments quietly abandoned due to regulatory uncertainty). Both metrics were proposed as practical feedback loops for calibrating the regime.
Several contributors added that the CMA might play a constructive role in trust‑building (e.g., transparency obligations) even as Europe’s AI Act proceeds on a more prescriptive track—underscoring the UK’s challenge to protect innovation incentives while addressing legitimate risks.
On the United States and Trump, speakers linked shifting zeitgeist concerning “Big Tech” to the second Trump administration and its pushback against foreign regulation of US firms. They also warned that if foreign regimes are perceived to target U.S. firms, diplomatic frictions and non‑tariff responses become more likely. Ministers presently have few levers to weigh such tradeoffs against DMU actions. There was disagreement as some speakers saw these potential technical barriers to trade as strengthening the UK and EU’s bargaining positions, while others argued they merely exacerbated tensions without any benefit to these jurisdictions’ leverage.
Finally, turning to Draghi’s competitiveness report, some argued that Europe’s growth problem reflects fragmentation and lack of scale/uniformity more than excessive regulation; others worried that the policy response tilts toward protectionist instruments (including procurement preferences) that could clash with international commitments (e.g., WTO/UKTCA), while actively harming Europe’s—and the UK’s, were it to adopt similar measures—ability to attract and nurture cutting edge technology companies.
