The Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) purpose is to help people, businesses and the UK economy by protecting competition and tackling unfair behaviour.
This includes work to ensure that across digital markets, people can be confident they are getting great choices and fair deals; that competitive, fair-dealing businesses can innovate and thrive; and that dynamic competition stimulates investment and competitive innovation, driving economic growth and productivity.
The new digital markets competition regime
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act 2024 establishes a new digital markets competition regime. This includes providing the CMA with the power to designate powerful digital firms with Strategic Market Status (SMS) in a digital activity, and then to impose interventions to promote greater competition and innovation.
There are 3 types of potential intervention:
- we can impose conduct requirements that aim to guide the behaviour of SMS firms and tackle conduct that could exploit consumers and businesses or undermine fair competition
- we can impose pro-competition interventions on SMS firms to remedy, mitigate or prevent factors which are preventing, restricting or distorting competition
- SMS firms will also have to report to us on intended mergers, before their completion, where they have a value of £25 million or more, a UK connection, and involve the acquisition of 15 per cent or more of the shares or voting rights in the target business
We will monitor these interventions and SMS firms’ compliance with them and we can enforce for potential breaches of regulatory requirements and, where we find wrong-doing, impose significant penalties.
We want to hear from you
We are consulting on draft guidance for the new digital markets competition regime, as established by the DMCC Act.
We have produced draft guidance on how the CMA will exercise its functions under the new regime. There are 2 guidance documents, 1 on the overall digital markets competition regime, and 1 on the merger reporting requirements for firms designated as having SMS under that regime.
It's important we hear feedback from businesses, expert groups and key stakeholders on this proposed approach.
Responding to our consultation
Submit your response using the service below.
You can:
- upload a document (for example a PDF)
- fill out an online form
- send your feedback by email
If your response contains any information that you regard as sensitive and that you would not wish to be published, please provide a non-confidential version for publication on our website which omits that material and which explains why you regard it as sensitive at the same time.
If you need support with the form, or would like to send your response by email, contact dmguidance@cma.gov.uk.
Your personal data
Your name and contact details are your personal data. In collecting, receiving, storing, accessing and using your personal data, the CMA, as controller, is processing your personal data. The CMA processes personal data in accordance with data protection law. The CMA is processing your personal data so that it can contact you again, should it need further help or information from you, in order to carry out its merger work under Part 3 of the Enterprise Act 2002.
For more information about how the CMA processes personal data and your rights relating to that data, read our privacy notice.
Consultation document (219 KB) (pdf)
