The Competition and Markets Authority is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-competitive activities. The CMA launched in shadow form on 1 October 2013 and began operating fully on 1 April 2014, when it assumed many of the functions of the previously existing Competition Commission and Office of Fair Trading, which were abolished.
Formation
On 15 March 2012 the UK Government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills announced proposals for strengthening competition in the UK by merging the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission to create a new single Competition and Markets Authority. The formation of the CMA was enacted in Part 3 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, which received royal assent on 25 April 2013. In July 2012, Lord Currie was appointed chairman designate of the CMA and in January 2013 Alex Chisholm was appointed Chief Executive designate. The term 'designate' was dropped when the CMA was launched on 1 October 2013. On 15 July 2013 BIS announced the first stage of an open public consultation period and published a summary, setting out the background to the consultation and inviting views on the draft guidance for the CMA. The first stage of the consultation ended on 6 September 2013. On 17 September, BIS announced the second stage of the consultation, which closed on 7 November 2013. During 2013 and 2014, the CMA announced several waves of appointments at director level, reporting to members of the senior executive team. On 28 March 2014 the CMA published the Rules of Procedure for CMA merger, market and special reference groups following a consultation which ran from 21 February to 18 March. On 26 July 2017, Andrea Coscelli was appointed chief executive officer of the Competition and Markets Authority. On 20 June 2018, Andrew Tyrie took up his role as the new Chair of the CMA, taking over from Lord Currie. On 12 August 2019, The CMA's London office moved to The Cabot, 25 Cabot Square, Canary Wharf.
Responsibilities
In situations where competition could be unfair or consumer choice may be affected, the CMA is responsible for:
encouraging regulators to use their competition powers
considering regulatory references and appeals
Strategic Goals
The CMA currently lists 5 strategic goals:
delivering effective enforcement – to deter wrongdoing, protect consumers and educate businesses
extending competition frontiers – by using the markets regime to improve the way competition works, in particular within the regulated sectors
refocusing consumer protection – working with its partners to promote compliance and understanding of the law, and empowering consumers to make informed choices
achieving professional excellence – by managing every case efficiently, transparently and fairly, and ensuring all legal, economic and financial analysis is conducted to the highest international standards
developing integrated performance – through ensuring that all staff are brought together from different professional backgrounds to form effective multi-disciplinary teams and provide a trusted competition adviser across government
In December 2019 the Commission released a report with recommendations to curtail the duopoly of Google and Facebook. The general election meant that the report was not presented to the Government in December. So ideas like sharing their 90% share of our online data with other companies has not been acted upon. The UK Competition Commission ruled several times against MyFerryLink, so it could no longer operate from Dover despite the French competition authority authorising cross-channel activity. The French government blamed the decision to ban one out of three ferry operators on fair-trade concerns. The appeals court overturned these rulings because MyFerryLink was not a merger of the bankrupt SeaFrance and Eurotunnel. MyFerryLink called attention to a potential conflict of interest, pointing out that the former accountant of DFDS was now a member of the UK Competition Commission. Following these delays, Eurotunnel sold two new boats to the DFDS competitor. Because of this the port of Calais was blocked by workers, boats were occupied and the Channel Tunnel attacked, resulting in cross-channel disruption and traffic jams in the UK and France. The UK Competition Commission ruled against the merger between Illumina and Pacific Biosciences in 2019. Some experts in the field of DNA sequencing considered that this would be bad news for Pacific Biosciences, although others considered the UK CMA's decision to be within their remit. The US Federal Trade Commission argued along the same lines as the UK CMA's decision later in 2019.
Healthcare
During an inquiry into the private healthcare market the authority made the Private Healthcare Market Investigation Order 2014. This requires healthcare providers, including NHS trusts to submit information to the Private Healthcare Information Network. This will include information about infection rates, rates of adverse incidents, and the relative health improvement brought about by treatments. This will be broken down by consultant in 2018 and in 2019 will extend to charges.
