Big Tech Awaits New EU Antitrust Chief, Lobbies for Looser Regulations

Big Tech, calls for looser rules await new EU antitrust chief

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Teresa Ribera will have to square up to Big Tech, banks and airlines if confirmed as Europe's new antitrust chief, while juggling calls for looser rules to help create EU champions. Nominated by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the high-profile antitrust post on Tuesday, Ribera has been Spain's minister for ecological transition since 2018. The 55-year-old Spanish socialist, one of Europe's most ambitious policymakers on climate change, will have to secure European Parliament approval before taking up her post. As competition commissioner, she will be able to approve or veto multi-billion euro mergers or slap hefty fines on companies seeking to bolster their market power by throttling smaller rivals or illegally teaming up to fix prices. One of her biggest challenges will be to ensure that Amazon, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft and Meta comply with landmark rules aimed at reining in their power and giving consumers more choice. Apple, Google and Meta are firmly in outgoing EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager's crosshairs for falling short of complying with the Digital Markets Act. Another challenge will be how to deal with the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence amid concerns about Big Tech leveraging its existing dominance. Ribera may ramp up a crackdown on non-EU state subsidies begun by Vestager aimed at preventing foreign companies from acquiring EU businesses or taking part in EU public tenders with unfair state support. Recent rulings from Europe's highest court, which backed the Commission's 13 billion euro tax order to Apple, and its 2.42 billion euro antitrust fine against Google, could embolden Ribera to take a tough line against antitrust violations. That would mean she would be in no hurry to ease up on antitrust rules, despite Mario Draghi's call to boost EU industrial champions so that they are able to compete with U.S. and Chinese competitors. Ribera was also named on Tuesday as executive vice president of a clean, just and competitive energy transition, tasked with ensuring that Europe achieves its green goals. Her credentials include negotiating deals among EU countries on emissions limits for trucks and a contentious upgrade of EU power market rules last year. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; additional reporting by Marine Strauss and Kate Abnett; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Alexander Smith)

Big Tech, calls for looser rules await new EU antitrust chief

Nominated by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the high-profile antitrust post on Tuesday, Ribera has been Spain's minister for ecological transition since 2018.Teresa Ribera will have to square up to Big Tech, banks and airlines if confirmed as Europe's new antitrust chief, while juggling calls for looser rules to help create EU champions. Nominated by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the high-profile antitrust post on Tuesday, Ribera has been Spain's minister for ecological transition since 2018. The 55-year-old Spanish socialist, one of Europe's most ambitious policymakers on climate change, will have to secure European Parliament approval before taking up her post. As competition commissioner, she will be able to approve or veto multi-billion euro mergers or slap hefty fines on companies seeking to bolster their market power by throttling smaller rivals or illegally teaming up to fix prices. One of her biggest challenges will be to ensure that Amazon, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft and Meta comply with landmark rules aimed at reining in their power and giving consumers more choice. Apple, Google and Meta are firmly in outgoing EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager's crosshairs for falling short of complying with the Digital Markets Act. Another challenge will be how to deal with the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence amid concerns about Big Tech leveraging its existing dominance. Ribera may ramp up a crackdown on non-EU state subsidies begun by Vestager aimed at preventing foreign companies from acquiring EU businesses or taking part in EU public tenders with unfair state support. Recent rulings from Europe's highest court, which backed the Commission's 13 billion euro tax order to Apple, and its 2.42 billion euro antitrust fine against Google, could embolden Ribera to take a tough line against antitrust violations. That would mean she would be in no hurry to ease up on antitrust rules, despite Mario Draghi's call to boost EU industrial champions so that they are able to compete with U.S. and Chinese competitors. Ribera was also named on Tuesday as executive vice president of a clean, just and competitive energy transition, tasked with ensuring that Europe achieves its green goals. Her credentials include negotiating deals among EU countries on emissions limits for trucks and a contentious upgrade of EU power market rules last year.

Big Tech, calls for looser rules await new EU antitrust chief

Teresa Ribera will have to square up to Big Tech, banks and airlines if confirmed as Europe's new antitrust chief, while juggling calls for looser rules to help create EU champions. Nominated Tuesday by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the high-profile antitrust post, Ribera has been Spain's minister for ecological transition since 2018. The 55-year-old Spanish socialist, one of Europe's most ambitious policymakers on climate change, will have to secure European Parliament approval before taking up her post. As competition commissioner, she will be able to approve or veto multi-billion euro mergers or slap hefty fines on companies seeking to bolster their market power by throttling smaller rivals or illegally teaming up to fix prices. One of her biggest challenges will be to ensure that Amazon, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft and Meta comply with landmark rules aimed at reining in their power and giving consumers more choice. Apple, Google and Meta are firmly in outgoing EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager's crosshairs for falling short of complying with the Digital Markets Act. Another challenge will be how to deal with the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence amid concerns about Big Tech leveraging its existing dominance. Ribera may ramp up a crackdown on non-EU state subsidies begun by Vestager aimed at preventing foreign companies from acquiring EU businesses or taking part in EU public tenders with unfair state support. Recent rulings from Europe's highest court, which backed the Commission's $14.5 billion tax order to Apple, and its $2.7 billion antitrust fine against Google, could embolden Ribera to take a tough line against antitrust violations. That would mean she would be in no hurry to ease up on antitrust rules, despite Mario Draghi's call to boost EU industrial champions so that they are able to compete with U.S. and Chinese competitors. Ribera was also named on Tuesday as executive vice president of a clean, just and competitive energy transition, tasked with ensuring that Europe achieves its green goals. Her credentials include negotiating deals last year among EU countries on emissions limits for trucks and a contentious upgrade of EU power market rules.

Big Tech, calls for looser rules await new EU antitrust chief

Ribera must secure European Parliament's approval before taking up her post * She will oversee compliance with the Digital Markets Act by Big Tech * Ribera also named executive VP for clean, competitive energy transition By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS, Sept 17 - Teresa Ribera will have to square up to Big Tech, banks and airlines if confirmed as Europe's new antitrust chief, while juggling calls for looser rules to help create EU champions. Nominated by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the high-profile antitrust post on Tuesday, Ribera has been Spain's minister for ecological transition since 2018. The 55-year-old Spanish socialist, one of Europe's most ambitious policymakers on climate change, will have to secure European Parliament approval before taking up her post. As competition commissioner, she will be able to approve or veto multi-billion euro mergers or slap hefty fines on companies seeking to bolster their market power by throttling smaller rivals or illegally teaming up to fix prices. One of her biggest challenges will be to ensure that Amazon , Apple, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft and Meta comply with landmark rules aimed at reining in their power and giving consumers more choice. Apple, Google and Meta are firmly in outgoing EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager's crosshairs for falling short of complying with the Digital Markets Act. Another challenge will be how to deal with the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence amid concerns about Big Tech leveraging its existing dominance. Ribera may ramp up a crackdown on non-EU state subsidies begun by Vestager aimed at preventing foreign companies from acquiring EU businesses or taking part in EU public tenders with unfair state support. Recent rulings from Europe's highest court, which backed the Commission's 13 billion euro tax order to Apple, and its 2.42 billion euro antitrust fine against Google, could embolden Ribera to take a tough line against antitrust violations. That would mean she would be in no hurry to ease up on antitrust rules, despite Mario Draghi's call to boost EU industrial champions so that they are able to compete with U.S. and Chinese competitors. Ribera was also named on Tuesday as executive vice president of a clean, just and competitive energy transition, tasked with ensuring that Europe achieves its green goals. Her credentials include negotiating deals among EU countries on emissions limits for trucks and a contentious upgrade of EU power market rules last year.

Big Tech, calls for looser rules await new EU antitrust chief

BRUSSELS, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Teresa Ribera will have to square up to Big Tech, banks and airlines if confirmed as Europe's new antitrust chief, while juggling calls for looser rules to help create EU champions. Nominated by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the high-profile antitrust post on Tuesday, Ribera has been Spain's minister for ecological transition since 2018. The 55-year-old Spanish socialist, one of Europe's most ambitious policymakers on climate change, will have to secure European Parliament approval before taking up her post. Advertisement · Scroll to continue As competition commissioner, she will be able to approve or veto multi-billion euro mergers or slap hefty fines on companies seeking to bolster their market power by throttling smaller rivals or illegally teaming up to fix prices. One of her biggest challenges will be to ensure that Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab, Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab, Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and Meta (META.O), opens new tab comply with landmark rules aimed at reining in their power and giving consumers more choice. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Apple, Google and Meta are firmly in outgoing EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager's crosshairs for falling short of complying with the Digital Markets Act. Another challenge will be how to deal with the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence amid concerns about Big Tech leveraging its existing dominance. Ribera may ramp up a crackdown on non-EU state subsidies begun by Vestager aimed at preventing foreign companies from acquiring EU businesses or taking part in EU public tenders with unfair state support. Recent rulings from Europe's highest court, which backed the Commission's 13 billion euro tax order to Apple, and its 2.42 billion euro antitrust fine against Google, could embolden Ribera to take a tough line against antitrust violations. That would mean she would be in no hurry to ease up on antitrust rules, despite Mario Draghi's call to boost EU industrial champions so that they are able to compete with U.S. and Chinese competitors. Ribera was also named on Tuesday as executive vice president of a clean, just and competitive energy transition, tasked with ensuring that Europe achieves its green goals. Her credentials include negotiating deals among EU countries on emissions limits for trucks and a contentious upgrade of EU power market rules last year. Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; additional reporting by Marine Strauss and Kate Abnett; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Alexander Smith Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Foo Yun Chee Thomson Reuters An agenda-setting and market-moving journalist, Foo Yun Chee is a 21-year veteran at Reuters. Her stories on high profile mergers have pushed up the European telecoms index, lifted companies' shares and helped investors decide on their next move. Her knowledge and experience of European antitrust laws and developments helped her break stories on Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple, numerous market-moving mergers and antitrust investigations. She has previously reported on Greek politics and companies, when Greece's entry into the eurozone meant it punched above its weight on the international stage, as well as on Dutch corporate giants and the quirks of Dutch society and culture that never fail to charm readers.

Big Tech, calls for looser rules await new EU antitrust chief

The 55-year-old Spanish socialist, one of Europe's most ambitious policymakers on climate change, will have to secure European Parliament approval before taking up her post. As competition commissioner, she will be able to approve or veto multi-billion euro mergers or slap hefty fines on companies seeking to bolster their market power by throttling smaller rivals or illegally teaming up to fix prices. One of her biggest challenges will be to ensure that Amazon, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft and Meta comply with landmark rules aimed at reining in their power and giving consumers more choice. Apple, Google and Meta are firmly in outgoing EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager's crosshairs for falling short of complying with the Digital Markets Act. Another challenge will be how to deal with the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence amid concerns about Big Tech leveraging its existing dominance. Ribera may ramp up a crackdown on non-EU state subsidies begun by Vestager aimed at preventing foreign companies from acquiring EU businesses or taking part in EU public tenders with unfair state support. Recent rulings from Europe's highest court, which backed the Commission's 13 billion euro tax order to Apple, and its 2.42 billion euro antitrust fine against Google, could embolden Ribera to take a tough line against antitrust violations. That would mean she would be in no hurry to ease up on antitrust rules, despite Mario Draghi's call to boost EU industrial champions so that they are able to compete with U.S. and Chinese competitors. Ribera was also named on Tuesday as executive vice president of a clean, just and competitive energy transition, tasked with ensuring that Europe achieves its green goals. Her credentials include negotiating deals among EU countries on emissions limits for trucks and a contentious upgrade of EU power market rules last year. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; additional reporting by Marine Strauss and Kate Abnett; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Alexander Smith)

Spanish socialist Teresa Ribera likely to become EU antitrust enforcer

Silicon Valley, meet your likely new European enforcers. On Tuesday morning, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen -- recently re-elected by lawmakers -- announced her new team, comprising representatives of each EU member state. If confirmed by the European Parliament after hearings, these are the people who will propose new EU laws, and in many cases enforce those that are already in place. For the tech industry, the most important will probably be Teresa Ribera, who is set to take over from the long-serving Margrethe Vestager as Europe's antitrust chief. Ribera, a socialist, served as Spain's vice president and environment minister -- and will indeed also be responsible for shepherding the implementation of the EU's Green Deal. But in her antitrust role, she would be responsible for deciding whether Google should be broken up or not. Vestager threatened to force Google to sell some of its ad-tech businesses last year, saying it may be the only way to deal with Google's monopolistic position on both the buy and sell sides of the online advertising market. Reuters reported Friday that the Commission won't take such a drastic step, but the decision may now be Ribera's to make. If confirmed, Ribera will also inherit an investigation into the rapidly evolving AI sector. Vestager's team has been particularly interested in the trend of big AI players hiring top execs from smaller AI companies and licensing their technology, as has happened with Microsoft and Inflection. Some fear that this is a tactic designed to get around the antitrust restrictions on more traditional mergers. Ribera will also be the main enforcer of the Digital Markets Act, a recently enacted law that places strict limitations on the behavior of Big Tech "gatekeepers" like Meta, Google, and Apple -- all of which are already subjects of non-compliance probes. The Spaniard certainly has big shoes to fill. Vestager has been a groundbreaking competition chief who made tax justice a competition issue by forcing Ireland to claim $14.4 billion in back-taxes from Apple, and who hit Google with three enormous antitrust fines running to a collective $9.3 billion. The Dane was not re-nominated by her country due to her liberal party's dwindling fortunes back home, but she goes out on a high, with the EU's top court last week upholding both her Apple decision and one of the Google fines. (The court will rule on Google's appeal in another of those cases on Wednesday.) Meanwhile, von der Leyen's tech policy pick is Finland's Henna Virkkunen, a center-right former communications specialist who has just wrapped up a term as a member of the European Parliament. One of Virkkunen's chief roles would be to enforce the Digital Services Act, a recent bundle of rules covering content moderation among other things. As a lawmaker, she played a key role in shaping the DSA as it went through the legislative process. The DSA has until now been primarily enforced by France's Thierry Breton, a former CEO of France Telecom who has made waves in the U.S. by regularly sparring with Elon Musk over X's alleged contravention of the new rulebook. Indeed, when Breton publicly warned Musk about spreading disinformation in Musk's interview with former President Donald Trump last month, he didn't first clear the move with von der Leyen and other colleagues -- and reports suggest her resulting outrage is a key reason why she rejected Breton's re-nomination to the Commission. X already faces DSA charges and, if confirmed, Virkkunen would also take over formal DSA investigations into Meta and AliExpress. Leaving Big Tech aside, European startups will also be getting their very first dedicated commissioner, in the form of Bulgaria's Ekaterina Zaharieva. Stéphane Séjourné, France's replacement for Breton as Commission nominee, would probably also have an impact on the tech sector as chief of industrial strategy.