This event features a discussion with Sebastian Steneirt (Heinrich-Heine-University and Visiting Student EUI).
How can legal norms ensure not only formal validity but real, measurable impact? In EU law, the gap between legal design and practical effect has become increasingly visible, especially in the digital economy, where complexity, opacity, and speed challenge traditional enforcement models.
This tension has become very clear in the regulation of market power. EU competition law has struggled to keep pace with the structural features of digital markets, where network effects and economies of scale entrench dominant positions. Against this backdrop, the EU introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that represents a shift from ex post-antitrust enforcement to an ex ante regulatory regime by imposing direct obligations on designated Big Tech companies, so-called gatekeepers. Beyond its new substantive provisions, the DMA introduces a novel approach to enforcement: it places increased emphasis on the responsibility of gatekeepers to ensure compliance.
Compliance obligations are a familiar tool in economic regulation that seeks to hold regulated entities accountable and leverage their technical expertise to achieve policy goals. However, compliance often devolves into a formalistic box-ticking exercise that fails to achieve its objectives. That is why the DMA goes one step further: the regulated gatekeepers must demonstrate that they comply with the DMA’s obligations through compliance measures that are 'effective in achieving the objectives' of the DMA (Article 8(1) DMA). Accordingly, it is insufficient for gatekeepers merely to adopt measures that formally comply with the letter of the law. Rather, their measures must substantively contribute to the attainment of the DMA’s overarching goals, particularly the creation of fair and contestable digital markets.
Drawing on insights from regulatory and management theory, Sebastian Steinert conceptualises the DMA’s effective compliance obligation as a novel enforcement mechanism. His research examines the legal scope and consequences of this obligation and assesses its potential to strengthen the effectiveness of EU law.
Speaker: Sebastian Steinert is a doctoral researcher at the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf and is currently visiting the EUI. He is a contributor to the SCiDA project (Shaping Competition in the Digital Age).
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