On Monday 17 July, the Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE) published a report in which it recommends using elements of understanding of systemic risk from the financial sector for the assessment of risk by very large online platforms and search engines in the context of Digital Services Act (DSA) (see EUROPE 13221/33).
The authors believe that the players involved in the DSA should conceptualise systems as being made up of various main and peripheral players, interconnected by direct and indirect relationships, of varying weight or importance, similar to the existing approach in the financial sector.
Distinguishing between core and peripheral players could indicate the potentiality and severity of the risk and identify critical players, shared assets or vulnerabilities and possible mitigation points, the report details.
The authors of the report also believe that very large online platforms and search engines should have a benchmark of what constitutes a systemic failure or crisis in order to determine appropriate mitigation measures.
“While this clearly exists in the finance sector, there is not an EU consensus in many of the risk areas in the DSA, and no clear understanding of what failure would look like that providers can use to shape risk assessment”, summarises the paper.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/843 (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)