Six German authorities join forces to tackle the challenges of the digitalization era. Kickoff was last week, when the authorities signed a Memorandum of Understanding to initiate the “Digital Cluster Bonn”.
Who is in?
The reason the new initiative came to my – and probably other antitrust nerd´s – attention is the membership of the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO). Alongside are the:
- Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), Germany’s main authority for infrastructure, promoting competition in the markets for energy, telecommunications, post and railways
- Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Bundesbeauftragter für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit), a data protection supervisory authority
- Federal Office for Information Security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik), whose job it is to secure digitalization in Germany
- Federal Office of Justice (Bundesamt für Justiz), who is the central service authority of the federal German judiciary and the port of call for international legal relations
- Last but not least, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht), combining the supervision of banks and financial services providers, insurance undertakings and securities trading
Unsurprisingly, all of these authorities are located in Germany’s former capital Bonn, hence the name “Digital Cluster Bonn”.
What is the Digital Cluster about?
With the initiative, the authorities aim to expand their cooperation and work closer together on all aspects of digitalization. In their jointly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the corresponding press release, the members highlight the opportunities of digitalization for consumers, the economy and administration while acknowledging the entailed risks for data protection, competition, information and cyber security as well as consumer protection.
Since those risks affect all the authorities and their daily work, the members want to team up and support each other in the development and implementation of corresponding measures, including the bundling of know-how and resources. One of the main challenges will be the consistent application of the law in the digital sector, meaning in particular:
- the Digital Markets Act (which should be very well known to our regulars and about which we have already blogged, e.g., here and here),
- the Digital Services Act (which we have mentioned in our very first post),
- the Data Act (more on its connection to antitrust here) and
- the Artificial Intelligence Act (for more on AI and antitrust see here).
Cooperation will take place in topic-related (ad-hoc) cooperation groups at the working level. In addition, joint public events (such as workshops) or bilateral or multilateral position papers can be used to concretize topics of common interest. On the management level, the cooperation will hold an annual conference. This will also be used to identify specific cooperation needs and for evaluation purposes. The term of the MoU is three years, with the option to extend it by another three years, provided the evaluation does not prevent this.
The FCO´s role
Andreas Mundt, president of the FCO, is cited saying that his authority is looking forward to sharing its experience as a pioneer of trend-setting procedures in the digital economy for over 15 years and likewise benefitting from the others’ expertise.
The FCO certainly has significant experience in the digital sector. For instance by getting Meta (Facebook) to introduce a new accounts center to comply with an FCO decision. The FCO also has the stated goal of staying on top of digitalization matters in its own administration. One example is the Competition Register for Public Procurement, the first fully digital register in Germany (more on that here), another is upgrading of the FCO’s own technology to tackle the challenges of electronic dawn raids.
Other cooperations
Cooperations between German authorities are not a new invention, although in the past these were mostly bilateral. For example, in 2015 the Federal Network Agency and the FCO concluded the cooperation agreement for the Market Transparency Unit for Wholesale Electricity and Gas. And since 2021, the Federal Office for Information Security has been supporting the FCO´s sector inquiry about messenger and video services with its technical expertise.
What to expect
In an ever more digitalized world, the progress and effort envisaged by the Digital Cluster Bonn could seem like a natural step. All in all, the approach shows that German authorities see digitalization as an important topic and want to tackle it as a team with a holistic view. The consistent application of new laws and therefore the avoidance of conflicting views on competencies and approaches may allow stakeholders to tackle regulatory challenges more easily.
Given that digitalization plays a major role in many ongoing and likely future antitrust cases, the views taken by the initiative have the potential to become relevant for companies (and lawyers) concerned. However, how much relevance the Digital Cluster will actually have remains to be seen and will inter alia depend on the composition, the resources and the enthusiasm of the cooperations on the working level. The cluster’s first annual conference might allow for some insights and some further crystal ball gazing (a new digital super authority in the making?).
Photo by bamagal “My Life Through A Lens” on Unsplash
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