The Digital Markets Competition & Consumer Act & Competition Law - The Latest Developments

Introduction

The much-awaited Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act finally received Royal Assent and became law on 24 May 2024. The Act is expected to be passed to come into force in successive stages.

This flagship piece of legislation introduces a new groundbreaking regime for the regulation of digital markets designed to curb the anti-competitive behaviour of ‘Big Tech’ and provide fast and effective remedies to those aggrieved by digital platform’s offending conduct including private actions for damages. In addition, the Act implements the first major competition law reforms since Brexit. In a radical set of measures the Government updates the UK competition law regime thereby improving effectiveness and speeding up enforcement so as to maintain and improve public confidence in competition regulation.

The Act’s widespread reforms change the CMA’s market study and market inquiry regime, merger control thresholds and procedure and introduce stronger Competition Act 1998 enforcement together with greater powers being invested in the Competition Appeal Tribunal. The Act’s consumer reforms are outside the scope of this webinar.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• Introduction, background and rationale for the reforms
• Digital Markets
• Scope of New Regime for regulation of digital markets
• Digital Markets Unit part of CMA - the new regulator
• Three main pillars of new regime - Strategic Market Status, Enforceable Rules of Conduct and the Strategic Market Status merger rules
• Procompetitive Interventions
• CMA new powers and proposed enforcement policy
• Competition Law
• Reforms to CMA market study and investigation regime
• Updates to UK merger control regime
• New merger prohibition on foreign government ownership of newspapers
• Stronger Competition Act 1998 enforcement including increasing penalties on companies and directors as well as new investigative powers
• Greater powers for the Competition Appeal Tribunal
• More effective international cooperation with other regulators such as DG Comp and the DoJ/FTC
• Likely timetable for implementation

This webinar was recorded on 18th November 2024

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