The European Commission adopted its first Guidelines on exclusionary abuses of dominance on 3 September 2026. They sit under Article 102 of the TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), the general prohibition on abuse of a dominant position, and close a process of three and a half years that ran from an amending communication in March 2023, through a draft published on 1 August 2024, a consultation that closed on 31 October 2024, and a stakeholder workshop on 13 February 2025.1 Paragraph 246 withdraws the 2009 Guidance on enforcement priorities, published in the Official Journal (OJ) at OJ C 45 of 24 February 2009, with effect 30 days after the new Guidelines appear there.2
Paragraph 24 sets out how the Commission reads market share. A very large share held over a sustained period is, save in exceptional circumstances, evidence of dominance by itself, and the paragraph puts that in particular at 50% or more. Below that, it says dominance is generally unlikely where an undertaking holds less than 40%, while allowing that dominance can still be found there, for example where customers depend on the undertaking or competitors face serious capacity limits.3
Article 102 is not the Digital Markets Act, and the distinction matters for anyone reading the two as one enforcement programme. The DMA imposes standing obligations on designated gatekeepers; Article 102 requires the Commission to prove dominance and abuse case by case. Brussels reached for the treaty article in June to order Meta to restore free WhatsApp Business application programming interface (API) access to rival AI assistants, and the Court of Justice confirmed the €4.1bn Android fine under the same article in July. Complaints already lodged and still pending will now be argued against this text.
What a complainant gains is a published test to plead against, drafted by the authority that will decide the case. What the six member states with no named AI Act authority illustrate is the other half of the picture: doctrine written at the centre, in the same fortnight the periphery has nobody appointed to apply a different instrument.
