ARTICLE 19, together with a group of civil society organisations working to tackle excessive corporate power, filed a joint submission to the United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) consultation on the review of merger remedies. In the submission, we highlight the importance of ensuring that UK merger control remains effective, with a focus on designing appropriate remedies able to comprehensively address the expected anti-competitive effects arising from notified transactions.
In particular, we stress that the application of the new ‘pace and proportionality principles’ must not result in unworkable remedies. Acting expeditiously and proportionately should not go at the expense of thorough analysis needed to assess and address the potentially complicated anti-competitive harms arising from complex concentrations. Moreover, we call on the CMA to focus on ensuring that the remedies it accepts are effective and to not shy away from blocking a merger when remedies are unworkable. We also recommend that the CMA should assess the long-term effects of transactions and consider their impacts on a wide range of parameters beyond short-term efficiencies, for instance market dynamism and supply chain resiliency. Finally, we encourage the CMA to extend this dialogue to a wider range of stakeholders including civil society organisations, labour unions, citizens and other regulators, and to put in place measures to guarantee this dialogue does not jeopardise its independence.