Take a seat and grab some popcorn. The DMA series, starring the six gatekeepers Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Byte Dance continues. The European Commission has been an active director who has not been exclusively happy with the performance of its main actors. Have business users or end users acted as supporting actors so far or have they only been extras? Here is what happened since the DMA entered into force through the lens of a camera team.

As in the previous Series A 2021 and Series B 2023 financing rounds, BLOMSTEIN also supported the DeepTech company Helsing in its EUR 450 million Series C financing round with regard to foreign direct investment control law.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the hot topic of the moment. Interest in the use of AI systems is growing in both the private and public sectors. The motives are obvious: the hope is to increase the efficiency and speed of decision-making processes, save costs and achieve better results overall.

However, the regulation of AI is still in its early stages. At the end of 2023, the EU Parliament and Council agreed to adopt a regulation to regulate AI systems based on the proposal submitted by the Commission in 2021 (AI Act). It was formally adopted by the EU Parliament on 13 March 2024 and has yet to be adopted by the Council. The AI Regulation enters into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU and will be fully applicable - with some exceptions - 24 months after its entry into force. The AI Act is intended to ensure a reasonable balance between risk and innovation. The needs of citizens, SMEs and start-ups will be particularly taken into account and protected.

In light of the expected AI Act, potential challenges in relation to the procurement of AI systems shall be identified. Questions in the context of direct use of AI in a procurement procedure, e.g. in tenders or tender preparation with the help of AI, are explicitly not addressed.

The following considerations are a continuation in a series of BLOMSTEIN briefings addressing AI-related aspects of public procurement law, competition law, trade/direct investment (FDI) and ESG.

In our series of briefings, we recap the key milestones of the DMA implementation, deep dive into the various obligations that gatekeepers are facing, lay out the DMA’s implications for stakeholders who are not (currently) within the direct scope of the legislation and update you on the current status of affairs in the DMA’s implementation.

This time on: Real-time access to gatekeeper data for business users under Article 6(10) DMA.

In our series of briefings, we recap the key milestones of the DMA implementation, deep dive into the various obligations that gatekeepers are facing, lay out the DMA’s implications for stakeholders who are not (currently) within the direct scope of the legislation and update you on the current status of affairs in the DMA’s implementation.

This time we focus on: Regulators’ attempts to tame digital markets worldwide in the wake of DMA.

In our series of briefings, we recap the key milestones of the DMA implementation, deep dive into the various obligations that gatekeepers are facing, lay out the DMA’s implications for stakeholders who are not (currently) within the direct scope of the legislation and update you on the current status of affairs in the DMA’s implementation.

This time we focus on: access to data and services.

In our series of briefings, we recap the key milestones of the DMA implementation, deep dive into the various obligations that gatekeepers are facing, lay out the DMA’s implications for stakeholders who are not (currently) within the direct scope of the legislation and update you on the current status of affairs in the DMA’s implementation.

This time we focus on: interoperability, portability and switching.

In our series of briefings, we recap the key milestones of the DMA implementation, deep dive into the various obligations that gatekeepers are facing, lay out the DMA’s implications for stakeholders who are not (currently) within the direct scope of the legislation and update you on the current status of affairs in the DMA’s implementation.

This time we focus on: self-preferencing under the DMA.

In our series of briefings, we recap the key milestones of the DMA implementation, deep dive into the various obligations that gatekeepers are facing, lay out the DMA’s implications for stakeholders who are not (currently) within the direct scope of the legislation and update you on the current status of affairs in the DMA’s implementation.

This time on: Advertising provisions under the DMA.

In our series of briefings, we recap the key milestones of the DMA implementation, deep dive into the various obligations that gatekeepers are facing, lay out the DMA’s implications for stakeholders who are not (currently) within the direct scope of the legislation and update you on the current status of affairs in the DMA’s implementation.

This time on: Tying and bundling provisions under the DMA.