Legislation Empowering the CMA's Digital Markets Unit Introduced into Parliament

The long-anticipated Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (the Bill) has now begun its parliamentary journey following its introduction on 25 April 2023. Described as a "flagship bill" by the CEO of the Competition and Markets Authority (the CMA), the Bill not only introduces major landscape reforms to the UK's consumer protection regime (see our update here) and significant enhancements to the CMA's competition law powers, it also ushers in a new regime for digital markets. The Bill has the potential to be a "watershed moment" in how UK digital markets are regulated. 

The CMA established the Digital Markets Unit (the DMU) in shadow form in 2021 so the Bill marks a crucial next step towards it gaining formal statutory powers to police digital markets.

David Cran, Chris Ross, Melanie Mugrave and Leonia Chesterfield take a look at the main aspects of the new regime and the DMU's extensive enforcement powers.