UK competition regulator reveals plan to implement new digital markets regime

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), UK’s principal competition regulator has released a summary of its plans for implementing the new digital markets competition regime, as outlined in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Bill.

The document outlines the guiding principles for the CMA’s new role in implementing the digital markets competition regime. These principles involve customizing the CMA’s actions according to identified issues, prioritizing areas where it can have the greatest impact “on people, businesses, and the UK economy; engaging with a wide range of stakeholders; and operating with transparency.”

The proposed regulations will only apply to companies that the CMA designates as having Strategic Market Status (SMS) after conducting an investigation and public consultation. To be classified as SMS, companies must have significant and entrenched market power in a digital activity connected to the UK, hold a strategically important position, and have a global turnover exceeding £25 billion or a UK turnover exceeding £1 billion.

The CMA anticipates evaluating three to four companies for SMS status within a year of implementing the new regime and if it find that any of these companies are exploiting their position to gain an unfair advantage, it will accordingly impose specific conduct requirements like deprioritizing their own products or even providing competitors access to data.