The Data Act & Policy Options for a Sectoral Regulation to Protect Competition in the Automotive Aftermarket

Abstract

The European Data Act seeks to end the exclusive control of device manufacturers over IoT data in order to open secondary markets for innovative data-driven services. One of the sectors where the Data Act may have disruptive potential is the automotive aftermarket. Here, vehicle manufacturers and third-party service providers debate about access to “vehicle data, functions and resources” since nearly a decade. Despite the acknowledgement of the European Commission that the vehicle manufacturers’ data governance concept may be anticompetitive, this issue is still unregulated. The Data Act could potentially offer a solution to this problem, however due to a series of general shortcomings and sector-specific application issues, it fails to open the automotive aftermarket for innovative third-party services. Aware of this, the European Commission published an initiative for a sectoral regulation on access to vehicle data, functions and resources. While Data Act and sectoral regulation in principle pursue similar objectives, they have different approaches. This raises the question how the lex-specialis should be designed in order to protect competition in the automotive aftermarket in the light of an enacted Data Act. Finally, this article provides policy recommendations for such a sectoral access regulation.