n February 23, the United States House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, required the EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera to elaborate on how she is enforcing the
European Union's rules when it comes to Big Tech, as they seem to appear to target US companies.
Those requests also came after US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum where he was warning that his administration would scrutinize the EU’s Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, mentioning “that dictate how American companies interact with consumers in the European Union".
The Digital Markets Act works as a series of dos and don’ts for companies such as Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Booking.com, Meta Platforms, ByteDance, and Microsoft, the purpose of the act is to secure a level playing field and also give consumers more choices.
Jordan mentioned in a letter sent to Ribers on Sunday “We write to express our concerns that the DMA may target American companies,”, referring to the rules subject companies to burdensome regulations and also give European companies an advantage.
Reuters reported that Scott Fitzgerald, chairman of the subcommittee on the administrative state, was a co-signatory to the letter mentioned. The letter also criticized fines of up to 10% of the global annual revenues for DMA violations.
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Jordan and Fitzgerald mention that “These severe fines appear to have two goals: to compel businesses to follow European standards worldwide and as a European tax on American companies.”
The two of them also looked into the DMA requirements, writing that some of them could also be beneficial to China. “These, along with other provisions of the DMA, stifle innovation, disincentivize research and development, and hand vast amounts of highly valuable proprietary data to companies and adversarial nations,”, mentioned in the letter.
Ribera was urged to brief the judiciary committee by March 10. However, the European Commission did not respond to a request for comment.
It is also worth mentioning that in the European Commission where Ribera stands as one of the most powerful officials after Ursula von der Leyen, its president, did not want to discuss the matter with American companies.
By
George King
•
February 24, 2025 11:05 AM
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