Spain’s CNMC: The Story So Far

Jun 17, 2014

CPI Europe Column edited by Anna Tzanaki (Competition Policy International) presents:

Spain’s CNMC: The Story So Far by Andrew Ward (Partner, Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira)

Intro by Anna Tzanaki (Competition Policy International)

Welcome to the June edition of the CPI Europe Column! This June marks the one year anniversary since the enactment of the law creating the new Spanish “super-regulator” CNMC, the National Commission for Markets and Competition. The CNMC absorbed both the National Competition Commission and sector regulators and started operations in October 2013. The establishment of the new “super-regulator” was highly controversial with the European Commission advising against it and expressing concerns over the independence of the individual regulators and potential diminished competition in key sectors. But Spain decided to go ahead with the major institutional overhaul due to cost-savings considerations. In this edition of the Europe Column, Andrew Ward (Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira) explains how the reform has played out so far and draws some first conclusions from the antitrust record of the CNMC. After a brief account of the changes in the institutional set up and the new policy and practice attitude, he notes that concerns that the “reform would lead to a reduction in the intensity of antitrust enforcement in Spain” seem to materialize.​

It has been just over a year since Spain enacted a major reform of its regulat