Margrethe Vestager, the European Union's competition commissioner, will not return for a third term and will leave office this year. According to the Financial timeThe Danish government will nominate a different candidate as EU commissioner after Vestager’s political party did not perform well in the previous election. Vestager is known for being one of Europe’s leading antitrust enforcers and has been tough on big tech companies during her tenure. The market abuse cases she has brought forward over the years inspired the creation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is a regulation meant to ensure that big companies do not abuse their market power.
Apple, Google, Meta and other big industry players have had to implement changes to the way they conduct business after the DMA went into effect. Google, for example, said it will start showing price comparison results in Search from third-party aggregators when searching for services, such as flights or hotels. It will also make it easier for Android users to switch search engines. Apple said it will allow companies to set up their own app stores for iOS, but it conjured up its own strict rules that developers will have to follow.
The EU, under Vestager's direction, began investigating Apple, Alphabet and Meta in March to scrutinize their efforts to comply with the DMA. In an interview with CNBC Vestager later said Apple has “very serious” problems when it comes to non-compliance. Vestager also ruled in 2016 that Irish tax authorities had given Apple “privileged treatment” for more than a decade and ordered the company to pay Ireland 14.3 billion euros ($15.72 billion) in taxes. The EU General Court overturned her order in 2020, but the commission had appealed that decision.
The European Commission also fined Google €4.3 billion ($5 billion) for antitrust violations related to Android and $2.8 billion for favoring its own comparison shopping services over others on the search engine it runs. More recently, the EU fined Apple €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) for removing music streaming services from the App Store that rival its own.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will start interviewing new candidates next week, according to Times Vestager's replacement is expected to take over from her this autumn.
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