Therefore, the Digital Markets Act places the power to impose sanctions for breaches of the obligations imposed therein under the competence of the European Commission30. We therefore believe that the concept of unfair competition, as provided for in the Portuguese CPI, is still not the ideal means of protecting economic agents in these situations, since we are not dealing with a behavior between competitors. CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECTS The transition of companies’ economic activity to a digitized market, accessible to economic agents and consumers on open online platforms, raises new challenges for the protection of fair competition. The legal systems of countries with liberal economies tend to protect the proper functioning of competition by safeguarding and even promoting private economic initiative; by limiting dominant or monopolistic market positions; by protecting consumer rights; and by repressing acts contrary to fair competition. Unfair competition is a legal concept that represses certain acts that violate the values of fair competition to which economic agents wishing to operate in the open market are bound. In other words, acts committed by competing economic agents that violate freedom of economic activity, the plurality of economic agents, and/or consumers’ freedom of choice. We focus our attention on the challenges posed to fair competition by the practice of ranking commercial establishments on digital platforms based on comments left by users of those platforms. We also note that European regulations require digital platforms to apply transparent, fair, and non-discriminatory conditions when rating the economic agents that use them. We further conclude that this obligation also applies to situations where there is no direct competitive relationship between the service provider and the economic agents (professional users) of its digital platforms. However, it follows from the penalty system provided for in these regulations that the protection of fair competition will fall within the sphere of competition 30 FERREIRA; SOUSA, O novo regulamento dos mercados digitais, p. 115; MOTA; PINTÃO, O Regulamento dos Mercados Digitais, p. 196–197. 581 FAIR COMPETITION IN THE RANKING OF COMMERCIAL ESTABLISHMENTS
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