ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach Calls for Regulations for Powerful Market Platforms

There ought to be clear regulations with regards to digital platforms dominating the market, says Professor Achim Wambach, president of economic research institute ZEW in Mannheim and co-chair of the Expert Commission on Competition Law 4.0, appointed by the Federal Ministry for Economics and Energy. That’s the conclusion of the final report the Expert Commission on Competition Law 4.0 handed over to Federal Economics Minister Peter Altmaier today.

“We need regulations for market-powered platforms, and impose a limit on their self-serving behaviour. They should also be obliged to make portable user and usage data available in real time and in an interoperable data format,” says Prof. Wambach.

In September 2018, the Federal Ministry for Economics and Energy created the Commission on Competition Law 4.0, an independent committee of twelve experts responsible in particular for submitting proposals on reforming European competition law. In the view of the Commission on Competition Law 4.0, the practical and actual power of consumers to dispose of their own data must be improved, clear rules of conduct for market-dominant platforms introduced, legal certainty for cooperation in the digital economy increased, and the institutional relationship between competition law and other digital regulation strengthened.

To achieve these goals, the Commission has developed 22 concrete recommendations regarding platforms, data access, and digital ecosystems, having presented them today to the Federal Ministry for Economics and Energy.