Brave New World?

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is expected soon to get new powers to regulate digital companies with Strategic Market Status (“SMS”). Once the new regime is in place, the nature of the relationship between the newly regulated companies and the DMU will significantly change. The first challenge for both will be to navigate the transition towards this new relationship, which will be a continuous, long term relationship. This shift may be a challenge for both given the often-confrontational nature of their interactions so far. The second challenge will be for the CMA to choose between its different enforcement powers. There are several factors that the CMA may consider in making this decision, but it would be reasonable to assume that the CMA will have an incentive to choose to use its ex ante powers. This raises the question of what space will be left for abuse of dominance cases in digital markets, especially as behaviors addressed under both tools can be similar.

By Karla Perca Lopez & Stephen Kinsella^[1]

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) is expected soon to get new powers to regulate digital companies with Strategic Market Status (“SMS”). While in the EU the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) has already conferred similar powers on the European Commission, in the UK, after months of uncertainty, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill is expected to be introduced this month. In addition to its current antitr