On 6 June 2023, the European Commission (the Commission) launched a consultation on the template for the compliance report that designated “gatekeepers” will be required to submit annually under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Compliance Report for Gatekeepers

A “core platform service” for the purposes of the DMA (for example, online search engines, web browsers and social networks) will qualify as a gatekeeper if it has:

  • an annual turnover of at least €7.5 billion in the EU in the past three years or a market valuation of at least €75 billion;
  • at least 45 million monthly end users and 10,000 business users in the EU; and
  • control of one or more core platform services in at least three EU Member States.

Article 11 of the DMA requires gatekeeper platforms designated by the Commission to provide the Commission with an annual report describing the measures it has implemented to ensure compliance with their obligations under DMA Articles 5-7. Articles 5-7 impose positive obligations on gatekeeper platforms such as:

  • allowing end users to easily change default settings;
  • effective interoperability; and
  • fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory general conditions of access for business users.

Gatekeepers will be required to provide their first compliance report within six months once designated by the Commission. These reports will then have to be updated annually.

Commission Consultation

The Commission notes that contributions are particularly sought from undertakings which are potential gatekeepers under the DMA, together with business users and end users (and their representative bodies) of those potential gatekeepers.

The Commission’s objective is to gather feedback on the draft template specifying the minimum information to be included in reports for the purposes of Article 11.

In particular, the Commission welcomes feedback on the following two items:

  1. Precise indicators that the Commission may use to assess whether the measures implemented by the gatekeepers to ensure compliance are effective in achieving the objectives of the DMA and the relevant obligations under Article 8 DMA (which requires gatekeepers to demonstrate compliance with their obligations); and
  2. Content and presentation of the non-confidential summary of the compliance report, which must be provided pursuant to Article 11 (2) of the DMA, in order to ensure that this allows third parties to provide “meaningful input” to the Commission on gatekeepers’ compliance.

All interested parties have until 4 July 2023 to submit their views on the draft.

The stakeholder’s feedback will allow the Commission to produce a finalised version of the template. This finalised version may be regularly updated by the Commission to request further information.