Commission fines X for breach of the DSA
The European Commission imposed a fine of EUR 120 million on Company X for breaches of its obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA). In particular, Company X infringed the obligations applicable to very large online platforms in the areas of systemic risk management, transparency of service operation, and the handling of illegal and harmful content. The Commission concluded that Company X had failed to adopt sufficient and proportionate measures to protect users and public discourse, as required by the DSA.
The case is significant in that it confirms the practical enforceability of the DSA and demonstrates that platform obligations are not merely formal in nature. The Commission assessed not only the existence of internal rules, but also their actual effectiveness in practice. The decision sends a strong signal to other large online platforms that inadequate risk management, non-transparent algorithms or insufficient content oversight may lead to substantial EU-level sanctions.
This is the first non-compliance decision under the DSA.
Commission: Possible anti-competitive conduct by SAP
The Commission has reached a preliminary view that SAP may have restricted competition in the market for the maintenance and support of on-premise enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.
SAP may have abused its dominant position (in the EEA market for after-sales maintenance and support services for SAP on-premise ERP software) by:
- imposing an “all-or-nothing” policy, requiring customers to source maintenance and support for all of their SAP on-premise ERP software at the same level of support;
- preventing customers from terminating maintenance and support services for unused software licences (“shelfware”);
- extending the initial licence validity period for on – premise ERP software during which maintenance and support cannot be terminated;
- charging reinstatement and back-maintenance fees to customers who re-subscribe to SAP maintenance and support after a period of absence.
SAP has offered commitments (while not agreeing with the Commission’s preliminary assessment):
Key elements of the commitments include:
- All-or-nothing policy: SAP customers may request the unbundling of their digital environment integrating all SAP on-premise ERP software products and licences into separate commercial installations. For each commercial installation, customers will be able to choose different maintenance and support providers and/or different levels of SAP support, or to leave certain installations without support.
- Shelfware: SAP commits to offering greater transparency and broader access to single-metric contracts, under which licence fees – including maintenance and support fees – are calculated based on an agreed metric (e.g. revenue). In addition, customers will be able to create separate commercial installations including shelfware and terminate maintenance and support for such installations.
- Extension of the initial validity period: SAP commits to clarifying its contractual provisions on the extension of the initial validity period and not requiring it to restart upon each additional licence purchase.
- Back-maintenance and reinstatement fees: SAP commits to abolishing reinstatement fees and to reducing back-maintenance fees to 50% of the maintenance and support fees that the customer would have paid had support not been terminated, capped at six months. SAP also commits to fully waiving back-maintenance fees for a list of products no longer supported by SAP and not covered by cross-product licences.
The Commission intends to accept these commitments.
Czech Competition Authority investigates possible abuse of dominance in online job advertising
The Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) investigated possible abuse of a dominant position by companies within the Alma Career group on the Czech market for online job advertising services.
The Alma Career group operates the best-known Czech job portals jobs.cz and prace.cz, while at the same time acting as a provider of recruitment management software (so-called ATS systems).
The Authority investigated suspicions that the Alma Career group was abusing its privileged market position by creating pricing and technical barriers that made it more difficult to integrate competing ATS solutions and competing job portals with Alma Career’s systems.
The administrative proceedings were terminated after the party to the proceedings submitted commitments designed to ensure interoperability with competing services offered on the relevant markets.
Digital Legal Update zde.