REFLECTIONS-30 AUGUST 2021

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF LEGAL & TECH EVENTS GLOBALLY | August 30, 2021

THIS IS REFLECTIONS, our weekly roundup of events in the legal and technology sector, covering various topics and interesting learning points for today’s professionals. If you couldn’t make an event, don’t worry, we probably made it and have all the juicy scoop for your reading pleasure and learning.

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S ENFORCEMENT STUPID: DIGITAL SERVICES ACT (DSA) AND DIGITAL MARKETS ACT (DMA) V. BIG TECH

The speaker was Alexandre De Steel, he started by saying that the cyber space is promising but it also has a lot of problems, he mentioned that there have been a lot of proposals to replace this cyberspace such as the digital market and the digital act service act.

He mentioned that there would be oversight and enforcement challenges in regulating cyberspace and he also noted that there are lots of big platforms and there should be larger information asymmetry between platforms and enforcement authorities. The speaker also mentioned that there should be an enforcement ecosystem and that the success of enforcement will depend on if the regulators can create a good ecosystem of enforcement.

On the proposal of the commission in DMA oversight and enforcement, he noted that it would lead to centralization at the European commission in bilateral dialogue with platforms and that there would be little role for national regulators and no clear definition of roles, he also noted that there would be distilled rules which would be easy to administer that are broad standards it seems that this will be impossible and won’t be self-sufficient.

On the DSA system of enforcement, he noted that this is a semi centralised institutional design national digital service coordinator member states where the platform is established.

He noted that ecosystem of oversight and enforcement stakeholders have more clear and explicit rules, and that it would lead to strengthening the commission as a digital regulator, he noted that it also maximizes synergy between the commission concurrent powers, he noted also that there would be exchange of confidential information and complementary in remedies, he also noted that there would be transparency on respective roles of both parties and on their powers, also he noted that there would be ensuring effectiveness and legitimacy, independence and also geographical roles, he noted that there will be accountability.

He noted that there should be a national agency in support of enforcement whose duty would include receiving complaints, creating remedies design, compliance and monitoring. He also said decentralized enforcement, designation, obligation, sanctions in case of no compliance the speaker also noted that it is very important that the authorities involved are also independent.

The speaker noted that they should be participatory regulations and that the DMA has a lot to learn from the DSA on this aspect.

The speaker noted that there is a need for European digital agency to monitor the competency of the DSA and the DMA, and also for consumer protection and data protection enforcement, he also noted that centralisation is needed for big tech and that oversight and enforcement is the key, also he noted that there is also a need for the European digital regulator.