EU Scrutiny: Antitrust Litigation and Big Tech Regulatory Action

European regulators have launched a series of investigations into Big Tech. The latest move could see Meta’s Facebook and Instagram face heavy fines under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) amid concerns they failed to adequately address risks to children.

Here are some of the actions taken by European regulators against big tech companies: EUROPEAN UNION

Microsoft expects to take additional steps to end an EU antitrust investigation into its Teams chat and video app, part of its Office product, even though it appears likely that charges will be brought at the EU level, the CEO said on June 4 Brad Smith. The European Commission launched an investigation last year into Microsoft’s linking of Office and Teams following a 2020 complaint by Salesforce-owned Slack, a competing workspace messaging app.

The EC is also investigating whether Microsoft prevents customers from relying on certain security software provided by its competitors, according to a document sent by regulators in January to at least one of the company’s competitors seen by Reuters. The same month, EU competition regulators said Microsoft’s more than $10 billion investment in ChatGPT maker OpenAI could be subject to EU merger rules, following a similar warning issued in December by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

OpenAI’s efforts to generate less false information from its ChatGPT chatbot will not be enough to ensure full compliance with EU data rules, a task force at the bloc’s privacy watchdog said in May. Meta Platforms has added security features to its CrowdTangle disinformation tracker for use during the June European Parliament elections, in an attempt to allay EU concerns that sparked an April inquiry into the impact of Meta’s decision to phase out the tool.

The EC then stated that Facebook and Instagram failed to cope with disinformation and misleading advertising in the run-up to the European Parliament elections. Facebook and Instagram are also being investigated for potential breaches of EU online content rules on child safety, which could result in heavy fines, the EC said on May 16.

On March 25, EU antitrust regulators said Alphabet’s Meta, Apple and Google would be investigated for potential DMA violations. In September 2023, the EU selected 22 so-called gatekeeper services run by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok owner ByteDance, giving them six months to comply with DMA rules that make it easier for European users to move between competing services.

In April, EU antitrust authorities designated Apple’s iPad operating system as a gatekeeper under the DMA. Both Meta and TikTok appealed its gatekeeper status in November, with the latter losing a bid to suspend the designation in February. In April, Apple said it would continue to work constructively with the European Commission to comply with its technology regulations.

On March 4, Brussels fined Apple 1.84 billion euros ($2.00 billion), the first-ever EU antitrust fine against an iPhone maker, following a complaint filed by Spotify in 2019. Apple announced that it would challenge the EU’s decision in court. An advisor to Europe’s Supreme Court said on January 11 that the court should uphold the EU’s €2.42 billion ($2.63 billion) financial penalty imposed on Google for violating competition law. In 2017, the European Commission imposed a financial penalty on the company for using its own price comparison website to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals.

UNITED KINGDOM In October, the U.K. media regulator asked the CMA to investigate the dominance of Amazon and Microsoft in the U.K. cloud services market, citing characteristics that made it difficult for companies to switch or mix and match cloud service providers. The CMA will complete its investigation by April 2025.

FRANCE The French competition authority said in March it had fined Google 250 million euros ($272 million) for breaches of EU intellectual property rules in its dealings with media publishers.

In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that the regulator had raided Nvidia’s local offices. The watchdog disclosed the raid but did not name the company beyond saying it operated in the “graphics card sector.” Nvidia declined to comment. GERMANY

Google has agreed to change its user data practices to end a German antitrust investigation that sought to limit its data-based market power, the German cartel office said in October. The regulator said Google’s commitments would give users more choice over how their data is used on the platforms. ITALY

Italy’s antitrust authority said on June 5 that it had fined Facebook and Meta 3.5 million euros ($3.8 million) for what it described as unfair commercial practices. Last May, the antitrust agency announced that it had launched an investigation into Apple for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the app market.

In April 2023, he took action against Meta for allegedly abusing its position in the country as part of an investigation into the rights to music posted on the group’s platforms. NETHERLANDS

In April, the Dutch privacy authority advised government organizations to stop using Facebook until it was clear what was happening to the personal data of users of government Facebook pages. The country’s competition regulator said in October that it had rejected Apple’s objections to financial penalties of 50 million euros ($54.4 million) for failing to comply with rules aimed at curbing the App Store’s dominant position. Apple will appeal this decision to the Dutch courts.

SPAIN The Spanish data protection authority ordered in May the temporary suspension of two planned Meta products to be rolled out during the European Parliament elections on Instagram and Facebook.

A startup group representing more than 700 startups in Spain filed a complaint about Microsoft’s cloud practices with the country’s antitrust regulator in May, citing several allegedly anti-competitive practices in recent years. ($1 = 0.9197 euro) (Compiled by Alessandro Parodi, Victor Goury-Laffont, Olivier Cherfan, Paolo Laudani and Enrico Sciacovelli in Gdańsk; Editing by Lucy Marks, Christina Fincher, Gerry Doyle and Milla Nissi)

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