Shaping Competition in the Digital Age (SCiDA)

The role of law for the economy is to provide the framework that makes markets function. When the logic of markets changes – how does the law follow up? In three jurisdictions – Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union – new and ambitious regimes are introduced to tame the power of digital gatekeepers, i.e. companies such as Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook) or Microsoft. This is the regulatory reaction to the disruptive changes of the platform economy. While motivated by similar normative goals, Germany, the UK and the EU take different approaches to implement these goals. We focus on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in the EU, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (UK) and section 19a of the German Act against Restraints of competition (§ 19a GWB).

Learn more about the new era of digital regulation!

In our research project “Shaping Competition in the Digital Age (SCiDA)” we accompany the regulatory initiatives from the beginning and aim to answer three fundamental questions:

• Documenting Change: How do the new rules in the different jurisdictions work in practice?
• Diagnosing Progress: What proves effective for reaching the goals of the new rules?
• Developing Concepts: What are elements of the new normative and institutional framework for safeguarding competition in the digital age?

The project is a joint research effort of two teams: Professor Oles Andriychuk at the University of Newcastle (UK) and Professor Rupprecht Podszun at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (Germany) are the project leaders. Together with a dedicated team of young scholars, they work on these issues. Current team members are Dr Jasper van den Boom and Sarah Hinck. Learn more about our team!

We invite you to take part in this project! We want to build a platform (without assuming a gatekeeper position) for researchers from around the world to contribute and to share wisdom. Learn more about how you can be a part of the SCiDA network!

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in Germany and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the United Kingdom have decided to generously fund this project for a three-year-period.

Why is this project called SCiDA? Learn more about the word behind the acronym!

With the project,

• we monitor how the new rules for the digital economy are enforced in the UK, Germany and on the EU level,
• we identify underlying enforcement principles and policies,
• we develop concrete proposals from a comparative perspective on how to improve digital regulation so that the jurisdictions can profit from each other’s experiences, and
• we suggest overarching theoretical models, based on substantive principles and enforcement techniques, for a future framework that can shape competition in digital markets.

Our first project is to set up a database of digital regulation covering Germany, the UK and the EU. This database is designed to help experts and stakeholders dealing primarily with the three jurisdictions.

Here you find publications from our team members related to this research project.