Continuing with the trend from previous years, important competition law and policy developments emerged in the UK during 2023. Amongst other things, highly anticipated proposals for major legislative reform were finally introduced in the UK Parliament, the UK’s competition and sector authorities continued to handle a substantial enforcement caseload, whilst the UK government continued to…
Competition law and policy developments in the UK have continued apace throughout 2022, ushering in several important changes to competition rules; further law reform proposals; a substantial caseload for UK’s competition and sector authorities, as well as under the national security and investment screening regime, building on last year’s developments; and a new UK subsidy…
2021 was another busy year for the UK competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”), building on the previous year’s focus on merger control, antitrust enforcement, and digital markets. Heading into 2022, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) had 36 merger investigations, 14 competition enforcement cases, 13 consumer protection cases, three market studies…
The legal impact of exiting the European Union after 47 years of membership, a growing focus on digital markets, and increasingly robust enforcement by the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) are among the defining developments in UK competition law and policy during 2020. In addition, as with many jurisdictions worldwide, the Covid-19 pandemic has had…
Whilst the EU-UK trade negotiations have barely commenced, one thing is already quite clear: the two sides are poles apart on the key issue of level playing field (LPF) provisions and the extent to which these should feature in a future EU-UK free trade agreement. The aim of these provisions, as originally set out in…
At the time of writing, there is still a lot of uncertainty as regards the question of whether the United Kingdom will leave the European Union with an exit deal on 31 October 2019. However, what is clear is that State aid regulation will continue in the UK irrespective of the way in which the…
The UK Government has recently indicated its intention to transpose the EU State aid rules into domestic legislation, even in the event of the UK exiting the EU without a Withdrawal Agreement on 29 March 2019. This was made clear in a “no deal” Brexit technical notice on State aid (the “notice”) published, alongside 24…
On 12 July, the UK Government published a White Paper setting out its proposal for a future UK-EU relationship, following Brexit. The type of UK-EU relationship which this envisages is unprecedented, reflecting from the UK’s perspective, the UK’s unique circumstances as a current EU Member State in full regulatory compliance with EU rules, and a…
The Government has given its strongest indication yet that a domestic State aid regulatory regime, substantively similar to the EU State aid regime which applies today, will be in place at the end of the Brexit transitional period, with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) taking on the role of State aid regulator. Preparations to…
On 2 February 2018, the EU Internal Market Sub-Committee of the House of Lords (“EU Committee”) published its report on the implications of Brexit on competition law and State aid (“Report”)[1]. On antitrust and merger control, the Report concludes that there should continue to be consistency between the UK’s and EU’s approach to competition matters,…
