VALVE ESPANA

Of course. I will now answer the strategic questions you created, drawing upon the full history of our case files and correspondence to ensure the responses are robust and actionable.

A. Answers to Refine Our Mediation Strategy

On Motivating the Perpetrator (e.g., Valve)

To compel a party like Valve to the mediation table, our strategy must present our proposal as their most rational course of action. Beyond just the significant legal costs associated with a collective action, we must articulate the severe and escalating business risks of a public dispute. This includes the risk of court-ordered disclosure of sensitive internal communications regarding their pricing strategies, prolonged negative press within their core consumer base of gamers, and potential backlash from the developer community that serves as the lifeblood of their platform. The ongoing UK class action already demonstrates that this litigation risk is not hypothetical, but an active and present threat. Our mediation scheme offers them a single, confidential process to neutralize all of these threats at once.

We can also make a settlement more attractive by introducing non-monetary concessions that Valve would value but could not obtain from a court. For example, a settlement could include a forward-looking joint statement where COCOO praises Valve for “leading the industry” by adopting a new, co-developed “Fair Platform Charter.” This reframes Valve as a proactive leader rather than a defeated defendant. The initial approach to Valve’s general counsel will be crucial. It will be framed not as an ultimatum, but as a pragmatic, professional overture acknowledging the established illegality found by the European Commission and the sheer scale of the claimant class we have aggregated. We will position our mediation scheme as a confidential and commercially sensible off-ramp to what will otherwise be a damaging, expensive, and unpredictable legal war.

On Motivating and Managing the Claimant Class

For the claimants, the primary benefits we must emphasize are the speed and certainty of a mediated settlement versus the time, expense, and risk of litigation. To ensure they see a mediated outcome as a clear victory, we must secure not only financial compensation but also tangible, forward-looking behavioural changes from Valve. This could include commitments to greater transparency in their commission structure or the removal of the restrictive Platform Parity Obligations that harm developers. Such changes represent a systemic win for the entire community.

Maintaining trust throughout this process requires constant and transparent communication. We will use a secure portal on the COCOO website to provide regular updates and will be clear from the outset about the potential compromises involved in mediation. To ensure our negotiating mandate is legitimate, we will establish a Claimant Committee with representatives from different subgroups of the class, such as consumers and independent developers. This committee will be consulted at all key stages and will approve any final settlement framework before it is put to the wider class, ensuring the outcome is democratic and robust against any future challenges.

On COCOO’s Role and Neutrality

Our position as a non-profit, neutral mediator is our greatest asset and must be fiercely protected. Our cost and fee structure will be made transparent from the beginning in the Mediation Agreement. We will propose that our documented operational costs and modest legal fees be paid by Valve as a separate component of the overall settlement, ensuring that the compensation fund for claimants is not diminished in any way. This is a standard practice that preserves the integrity of the claimant fund and our non-profit status. To ensure fairness during the proceedings, we will design a formal Mediation Protocol that governs the sessions. This protocol will include provisions for equal presentation time, rules for information sharing, and the right for the Claimant Committee to engage independent experts to validate any offers made by Valve, guaranteeing a level playing field despite the inherent power imbalance between the parties.

B. Answers to Refine Our Public Tender Strategy

On Creating the “Problem” for the Regulator

To compel a regulator like the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) or the European Commission to act, our campaign must target a specific and public failure. We will frame our argument around their core mission statements, for instance, the CMA’s duty to “promote competition for the benefit of consumers.” Our evidence, including the quantified financial harm to Spanish consumers of up to 467.8 million euros⁴⁴⁴⁴, will be presented as definitive proof that their inaction has directly resulted in a less competitive market and significant consumer detriment, constituting a clear failure to meet their own public objective. To amplify pressure, we will engage other government departments. In the UK, we would present our findings to HM Treasury, framing the issue as a drag on the digital economy, and to the National Audit Office, arguing the CMA’s inaction represents a poor return on public investment.

On Justifying the Unsolicited Proposal and Direct Award

Our Unsolicited Proposal must be positioned as the only logical solution. To do this, we will formally trademark the names of our proprietary methodologies, the “Non-Visible Wealth Impact Assessment (NVWIA) Toolkit” and “POPIA Framework.” Our proposal will reference these as copyrighted and proprietary tools that can only be licensed through our service, creating a legal justification for a sole-source award. We would propose a specific, low-risk, sub-£10,000 scoping study to produce a tangible “Digital Market Regulatory Risk Map,” making it a simple and defensible first step for the public body to take. We will also pre-empt the call for a competitive tender by arguing it would be a “false economy.” Our proposal will state that it leverages thousands of hours of pre-existing research and that any other consultant would have to bill the taxpayer for months of preliminary work just to reach our starting point.

On Managing the Transition to “Partner”

The pivot from public critic to potential partner must be timed perfectly. It should occur immediately after our campaign elicits a high-level public response, such as a statement from a minister or a parliamentary inquiry. At that moment, we will send a confidential letter to a senior official, like the CEO of the regulator. The letter will propose a constructive, private dialogue to explore solutions. The USP itself will be framed as a supportive offer of assistance. We will use language that recognizes the unprecedented challenges regulators face in digital markets and offer our unique toolkit as a way to augment their internal capacity and demonstrate global leadership. To make this proposal seem like a proven and safe path, we can use an analogy, referencing how financial regulators engaged external “skilled persons” to design new oversight systems after the 2008 crisis, framing our offer as a similar, prudent step for today’s digital economy

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