EU competition agencies “really don’t care” where a company comes from when enforcing antitrust rules in the digital economy, the head of Germany’s Federal Cartel Office has said.
Commenting on the current “uncertainty” surrounding the EU’s relationship with the US government, Andreas Mundt today stressed that antitrust enforcers within the bloc do not dwell on where a business is headquartered when enforcing antitrust rules.
The Trump Administration recently claimed that foreign governments have levied a digital services tax on US companies by enforcing competition law. Meanwhile, two US lawmakers suggested that the European Commission is weaponising the Digital Markets Act to target the US Big Tech platforms.
“We really don’t care if it [a company] comes from the US, Europe, or any other part of the world,” Mundt said during a keynote address at GCR Live: Antitrust in the Digital Economy in Washington, DC.
He noted the “enormous dependencies” that smaller companies in both the US and EU have on Big Tech platforms. These digital companies have such deep roots across the online economy that competition authorities must intervene to open up markets, Mundt said.
European enforcement is about protecting innovation and growth, he said.
“It’s easy to see that this has nothing to do with where a company comes from,” Mundt added.
He claimed that digital enforcement in Europe “is really in full swing”, pushing back against suggestions that the bloc will refrain from enforcing competition rules.
“We are enforcing and we have not slowed down the pace,” he said.
Mundt noted the FCO’s Section 19A probes into Amazon’s marketplace, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency Framework and Meta’s virtual-reality headsets, as well as EU designations of several Big Tech companies under the DMA.
Meanwhile, Germany’s Federal Court of Justice recently upheld the agency’s decision to designate Apple under its Section 19A rules, which are designed to police the world’s most powerful tech platforms.
Mundt noted that the FCO is one of five EU competition enforcers to have launched abuse of dominance investigations into Apple’s App Tracking Transparency Framework, alongside agencies in France, Italy, Poland and Romania.
Yesterday, France’s Competition Authority fined Apple €150 million, claiming it created an “artificially complex” privacy tool that specifically punished third-party mobile app publishers.
Mundt said the agencies have held meetings on a weekly basis to ensure there is no divergence on the case.
