EU Antitrust Leader Margrethe Vestager to Step Down

European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager will not be renominated for a third term, according to the Financial Times.

Vestager’s decade-long career as Europe’s top antitrust regulator was marked by landmark division and record-breaking fines against tech giants like Google, Apple, and Amazon. Her enforcement of the Digital Markets Act in 2023 and antitrust rulings brought her both acclaim and criticism.

The 56-year-old saw Google face antitrust fines totaling €8.25 billion and gained the nickname of the EU’s “tax lady” from former U.S. President Donald Trump. A €4 billion fine in 2018 for forcing Android device manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome was the biggest in EU antitrust history.

In her first two terms, Vestager also locked horns with Meta, Qualcomm, Alstom, and Siemens — the latter two for blocking their merger. Qualcomm was fined €997 million for abusing its market dominance in baseband chipsets.

In 2016, she ordered that Apple pay Ireland €14.3 billion after it was found to have received illegal tax benefits for over a decade, but this was annulled by the General Court of the European Union in 2020. CEO Tim Cook dubbed the fine “total political crap.”

However, when the DMA designated the seven ‘gatekeeper’ organisations, it forced the big players to make real changes. For example, in March, Google removed some Search widgets, such as Google Flights, to allow more access to individual businesses in response to a DMA ruling.

It also added new settings for choosing how data is shared between different Google services and so-called “choice screens” for Android and Chrome to encourage users to pick their preferred search engine or browser.

While Vestager gained popularity for her tough stance on antitrust issues, this has dwindled as of late after a series of legal challenges to her rulings. This includes ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, pushing back against its designation as a gatekeeper.

She further lost support in Brussels when French President Emmanuel Macron blocked her bid to lead the European Investment Bank. An MP from his Renaissance party told Politico bluntly, “Not Vestager!” Plus, in 2022, her Social Liberal party lost its place in Denmark’s coalition government.

Vestager’s replacement as European Commissioner for Competition will be nominated by the ruling Social Democrat party in the autumn, according to the FT, and is expected to be one of three men: Belgian Commissioner Didier Reynders, Dutch Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, or French Commissioner Thierry Breton.

Notable DMA rulings under Vestager

On June 24, Apple became the first tech giant to be formally charged by the European Commission for violating the Digital Markets Act.

The Commission found that Apple has three sets of business rules that ultimately prevent iOS app developers from directing their users towards third-party purchase options. This goes against the DMA, which states that developers should be able to steer their customers towards purchasing options outside of the App Store easily and free of charge.

Then, on July 1, the commission ruled that a second organisation, Meta, had failed to comply with the DMA. Its “pay or consent” advertising model, in which users who subscribe to Instagram or Facebook can opt-out of targeted ads, does not provide a service equivalent to one with paid ads if users opt for the subscription. It also doesn’t “allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data.”

Investigations into these rulings were opened in late March.

Alphabet also faced scrutiny at the time due to the way it presents Google search results, as they may steer customers back to Google services, such as Shopping, Flights, or Hotels. Google had temporarily removed the Flights unit from search results after the DMA went into effect in early March.

Apple took a series of actions in January to comply with the DMA, including changing its payment system for app sellers in the EU and letting go of the hold its App Store has over iOS app distribution in the EU. It also started prompting iOS users in the EU to select a preferred browser instead of defaulting to Safari. Nevertheless, it was fined €1.84 billion in March for imposing anti-steering provisions on music streaming apps.