Clifford Chance

The New UK Competition Regime

4 April 2014

Major reforms to UK competition law came into force on 1 April 2014.  The new Competition and Markets Authority has commenced operations, replacing the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission. It is no longer necessary to prove dishonesty to secure a criminal conviction for individuals involved in a cartel.  Other reforms include binding deadlines and information gathering powers for Phase 1 merger reviews, new powers for the CMA to prohibit closing of transactions, greater consideration of public interest issues in market investigations, compulsory interviews during civil investigations and relaxed criteria for the imposition of interim measures in civil cases.  

Download PDF