The pinnacle of the Home Judiciary Committee is demanding extra readability on Europe’s tech rules.
As Reuters reported Sunday (Feb. 23), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) needs European Union (EU) antitrust chief Teresa Ribera to make clear how she enforces the European Union’s guidelines governing Huge Tech beneath the Digital Markets Act (DMA), saying they appear to focus on American companies.
“We write to specific our issues that the DMA might goal American firms,” Jordan wrote in a letter despatched to Ribera, seen by Reuters.
The letter, co-signed by Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI), chairman of the subcommittee on the executive state, regulatory reform and antitrust, argues the principles place undue burdens on firms and provides Europe’s tech companies a bonus. It additionally criticizes the 10% fines on international yearly revenues firms are topic to beneath the DMA.
“These extreme fines seem to have two targets: to compel companies to comply with European requirements worldwide, and as a European tax on American firms,” the letter mentioned.
The lawmakers gave Ribera till March 10 to answer their letter. PYMNTS has reached out to the European Fee (EC) — the EU’s antitrust enforcement arm — for remark, however has not but gotten a reply.
As Reuters notes, the letter got here two days after President Donald Trump signed a memorandum saying the White Home would scrutinize the DMA and its counterpart Digital Companies Act (DSA) “that dictate how American firms work together with customers within the European Union.”
Adopted in 2023, the DMA governs tech giants resembling Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, and is designed to offer a stage taking part in discipline and better client alternative.
Nevertheless, complaints in regards to the DMA should not confined to simply Republicans. As coated right here in late 2023, a bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote to then President Biden with issues that the brand new rules unfairly goal American tech firms.
They argued that the DMA designates 5 main U.S. tech firms as “gatekeepers” whereas excluding many Chinese language and European companies.
The information follows experiences from final month that the EC was reconsidering its investigations into American tech firms forward of Trump’s inauguration. One EU official mentioned the shift was as a result of “tech oligarchs” being near Trump, a scenario that creates “a complete new ballgame,” per a report from the Monetary Instances.
