Search the archive.

On 17 July 2026, the UK Department for Business and Trade opened a consultation proposing wide-ranging reforms to three pillars of the competition landscape. For collective actions before the Competition Appeal Tribunal, certification would shift from a relative to an absolute suitability test, filing fees tied to claim value would be introduced, costs budgets would become mandatory, and damages-based funding agreements would be permitted for the first time in opt-out cases. The CAT would gain new mediation powers, and Type A leniency applicants would receive civil immunity from damages claims—a potentially decisive shift in cartel strategy. On regulatory appeals, the government proposes transferring jurisdiction from the CMA to the CAT, harmonising appeal standards across Ofwat, CAA, Ofcom and other sector regulators, and applying judicial review principles uniformly. On enforcement, the CMA would gain discretion over its decision-making structure, confidentiality handling and access-to-file rules, with a new £300,000 penalty cap for undertakings lacking representative turnover. Aff

…

Rising parallel enforcement by the FTC, DOJ, European Commission, and UK CMA is forcing merging parties to negotiate overlapping but inconsistent remedies—divestiture buyers, asset scopes, and timing often diverge by jurisdiction. Recent matters show agencies rarely defer to one another's analyses, increasing the risk that a remedy accepted in one forum triggers non-compliance in another. Practitioners recommend early pre-clearance mapping of likely remedy demands, harmonized purchaser searches, and explicit carve-outs in consent decrees to preserve flexibility. In-house counsel should build cross-border remedy playbooks before signing, identify jurisdiction-specific deal-breakers, and engage local counsel in parallel to stress-test divestiture commitments against each agency's stated preferences and recent precedent.