- Amendments tabled to Digital Markets, Competition and
Consumers Bill to balance regulator powers with fair review
processes.
- Changes will ensure regulator cannot impose an intervention
on a firm unless it is proportionate to do so.
- The Bill is set to ensure the UK remains one of the best
places to invest in and innovate new technology.
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill is set to
introduce a new targeted and proportionate regulatory regime to
address concerns around competition in the digital industry while
ensuring that the UK remains one of the best places to invest in
and innovate new technology.
At the heart of the Bill is a new approach to digital market
regulation, allowing the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
to intervene quickly and flexibly to promote competition.
Amendments to the Bill proposed by the Government today
(Wednesday 15 November) will maintain the appeals
process for all regulatory decisions (except fines) on
the basis of judicial review principles. This will mean
that eligible tech firms can challenge regulatory decisions on
proportionality grounds through this process.
This approach will enable the CMA to encourage the most powerful
firms in dynamic digital markets to work with regulators to
ensure competition is maintained on an ongoing basis, rather than
allowing legal challenges to cause the regime to get bogged down
in the courts. This will also act as a further incentive on the
CMA to ensure that it is always acting proportionately and
exploring the intervention that is most likely to achieve the
best outcome for consumers.
Under the Bill, certain firms may also be subject to fines that
could reach tens of billions of pounds. To make sure these huge
fines are balanced by rigorous checks and balances, these firms
will now be able to challenge these decisions “on their merits”.
These changes allow firms to challenge fines on the substance of
the decision, as well as the process to reach that
decision.
The legislation will also make clear that the regulator cannot
impose a conduct requirement or pro-competition intervention on a
firm unless it is proportionate to do so and there is a strong
evidence base behind the intervention.
These amendments bring the digital markets regime in line with
the approach taken for decisions under the CMA’s Mergers and
Markets regimes, where the decisions about the level of a fine
can be appealed on the merits.
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Minister,
, said:
Britain was the third country in the world to build a
trillion-dollar tech sector, and our fastest growing firms
continue to pull in more capital than counterparts in France and
Germany combined. Free competition is key to keeping the wheels
turning this vital, complex industry as it turbocharges growth
across the UK.
This Bill addresses barriers to competition that are unique to
digital markets by taking a bespoke and flexible approach, backed
up by strong new powers.
The changes we are making ensure that the regulator takes
proportionate action and avoids undue regulatory burdens, while
remaining accountable for decisions that will have far-reaching
economic consequences.
Following extensive engagement across the technology industry,
amendments proposed by the Government today make sure that the
regulator’s interventions will always be proportionate to
addressing the harm being caused to consumers and competition.
Further amendments today also boost the consideration of
consumers by making the regulator set out its reasoning for
intervening in a market, including how this will tangibly benefit
consumers.
This Bill uses the freedoms gained by the UK after leaving the
European Union to enhance digital competition to drive growth and
benefit consumers. Under the new powers granted by the Bill, the
CMA will prioritise its interventions according to the evidence
of harms and will target those by creating bespoke remedies.
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill is expected
to save consumers £9.7 billion over 10 years as UK consumers
benefit from new rights, stronger law enforcement, and more
competition including through merger control.
Notes to Editors:
