Recommendation 13

HM Government Not Addressed

The CMA will continue to build the Digital Markets Unit and to be a leading voice internationally on these important issues. The UK Government has committed to bring forward the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill in the third Parliamentary session. This will give the DMU the powers it needs to tackle market dominance through bespoke conduct requirements for the most powerful digital firms, pro-competitive interventions to create the conditions for more competitive and dynamic digital markets and earlier visibility of mergers most likely to lead to competition concerns affecting UK businesses and consumers. This will provide a boost for innovation and allow businesses of all sizes to compete fairly in digital markets. The CMA will continue to support the UK Government in its work to bring forward the Bill. The proposed Bill contains important improvements to the existing CA98, mergers and markets regimes that are also important to ensuring the CMA has the right powers to deal Post pandemic economic growth: State aid and post-Brexit competition policy: Government Response 19 with modern digital markets. In addition, the three proposed areas of change to consumer enforcement are vital to ensure our enforcement is fit for purpose: a) the ability for the CMA to make first-instance decisions on whether consumer law has been breached, subject to judicial appeal; b) fining powers for CMA and other consumer enforcers, bringing the deterrent for non-compliance into line with CA98, and c) improvements to substantive consumer law including long-planned changes on subscription traps and fake reviews.