The territorial scope of application of the DMA

The DMA defines expansively its territorial scope of application, addressing the delivery of core platform services to business users established in the Union or end users located in the Union by actors designated as gatekeepers, irrespective of their place of establishment or residence and independently of the law otherwise applicable to the provision of such services. The Chapter discusses the rationale for the broad approach adopted by the DMA in this respect, considering previous instances where the EU legislator or judiciary have adopted a similar approach, particularly in the fields of competition and data protection law. This approach is viewed as necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the Regulation in a domain dominated by influential actors primarily based in third countries. Some final considerations concern the indirect extraterritorial effects that the DMA is likely to produce, both in terms of establishing a model that national or regional regulators in other areas of the world might follow and in terms of inducing a phenomenon of spontaneous compliance by actors in the digital sector, even beyond its scope of application.