Mikolaj Barczentewicz on the Rising Costs of EU Tech Regulation
ICLE Senior Scholar Mikolaj Barczentewicz was quoted by RealClearMarket on the rising compliance costs faced by major U.S. technology companies under the EU’s Digital Markets Act. EU’s expansion of tech rules are costly, harmful to innovation, and unfairly burden American firms while calling for a U.S. response through a Section 301 investigation. Read the full article here.
Unsurprisingly, the costs of compliance have surpassed expectations. “During recent DMA workshops, Amazon revealed that its compliance costs have been ‘multiple orders of magnitude beyond that predicted amount,’” law professor Mikolaj Barczentewicz reports. “Meta representatives acknowledged that reality has dwarfed initial third-party estimates of $10-20 million per year,” he continues. Moreover, “Google reported conducting over 50 meetings with the Commission, responding to more than 55 requests for information, and making over 105 submissions in just one year—averaging one meeting, one request for information, and two submissions every single week.” Each dollar, every work hour, and every employee diverted toward regulatory compliance carries an accompanying opportunity cost, stifling dynamism and innovation.