Episode 28- SCiDA Conference Expert Panel on DMCCA and Section 19a GWB - Magali Eben, Konstantina Bania, Jan-Frederick Göhsl and Björn Christian Becker

In this episode, recorded on 27 May 2026 at the SCiDA Conference in Düsseldorf, Anush Ganesh and Sarah Hinck co-chair a plenary panel exploring the UK's Strategic Market Status regime under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act and Germany's Section 19a GWB. Magali Eben (University of Glasgow; Vice-President, ASCOLA) and Konstantina Bania (Brunel University; Geradin Partners) examine the CMA's early moves under the DMCCA, from the Google and Apple SMS designations to the newly launched Microsoft investigation, and ask whether the CMA is building a coherent enforcement strategy or risking fragmentation across its growing toolkit. Bjorn Christian Becker (Humboldt University of Berlin) and Jan-Frederick Gohsl (University of Munster) then take a deep dive into the regulatory architecture and recent case law under Section 19a, including the Bundeskartellamt's Amazon decision. The panel discussed how the bespoke, discretion-heavy design of the DMCCA and Section 19a compares with the DMA's prescriptive model, and whether that flexibility is a regulatory strength or a source of legal uncertainty. The discussion moves also to the strikingly different approaches to private enforcement: the UK's rapidly expanding collective proceedings docket against digital platforms running alongside public DMCCA enforcement, set against Germany's deliberate restriction of private Section 19a claims to cases preceded by a Bundeskartellamt prohibition decision. The panel also engages on whether either regime is equipped to address competition challenges raised by AI, foundation models, and AI-powered services, or whether entirely new legislative thinking is needed.