Consultation outcome

Consultation outcome: draft strategic steer to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)

Updated 15 May 2025

Summary of consultation themes and government response

Theme 1

The CMA should consider the actions being taken by competition and/or consumer protection agencies in other jurisdictions internationally, but this should not result in taking, or not taking, action because other jurisdictions have done so.

Government response

The steer sets out that the “CMA should consider the actions being taken by competition and/or consumer protection agencies in other jurisdictions internationally, and, where appropriate, seek to ensure parallel regulatory action is timely, coherent and avoids duplication where these parallel actions effectively address issues arising in markets in the UK.”

We consider the inclusion of “where appropriate” and the reference to “issues arising in markets in the UK” to be sufficiently clear that while the CMA should consider the actions being taken by international agencies, this does not equate to following those actions unless doing so would address issues in the UK.

We have also added an additional sentence to the last paragraph of Section 2.2 to make it clear the government expects the CMA to engage with international partners on issues of common interest.

Theme 2

The steer should confirm the independence of the CMA.

Government response

The government is committed to protecting the role of the CMA as the UK’s independent competition authority and this is made clear in the introduction of the steer, including where we state that the government expects “the CMA’s actions to be swift, predictable, independent and proportionate.”

While we consider the CMA’s independence to be implicit throughout the steer, we have added additional references to the CMA’s independence in Section 2.1 where we set out the expectation that the CMA will use its tools proportionately with growth and investment in mind. We have amended the text (addition in bold) to state that the “CMA must at all times properly and independently exercise its statutory functions to promote competition and protect consumers”.

In relation to the CMA’s new digital powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, we have amended the text to read that the “CMA should use the new Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act digital market regime independently, flexibly, proportionately and collaboratively to effectively unlock opportunities for growth across the UK digital economy and the wider economy.”

Theme 3

The CMA should take swift action but must not rush decisions or take action that is poorly thought through.

Government response

In the introduction to the steer, we state the government’s expectation that the CMA’s actions will be “swift, predictable, independent and proportionate.” In Section 2.1 we further set out that the CMA should “tackle as swiftly as possible, in line with the new duty of expedition, anti-competitive conduct which harms businesses and consumers, and limits the potential of our economy.”

We consider it important that the CMA should take swift action, specifically to tackle anti-competitive conduct that harms businesses and consumers, and do not consider there to be any implication that acting swiftly compromises the quality of the CMA’s decision-making.

Theme 4

Regulatory action must benefit consumers,

Government response

The steer makes it clear that “the CMA should provide proactive, transparent, timely, predictable and responsive engagement with businesses to enable them, in turn, to engage quickly and effectively with the CMA, including engagement during CMA investigations.”

Effective engagement with businesses is essential for the CMA, but the government acknowledges that engagement with wider stakeholders is also vital for the CMA to deliver for businesses and consumers. In response, we have amended the sentence that follows to “In doing so the CMA should focus on collaborative approaches to resolving issues with interested parties.”

Respondents

A breakdown of respondents by type is as follows:

Respondent type	Number of responses
Businesses	17
Trade associations and industry bodies	11
Academics	3
Lawyers or law firms	4
Charities	2
Non-profit organisations	2
Public bodies	1
Anonymous	1