Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

CMA definition

What does CMA mean? In practice, CMA refers to the UK’s competition and markets authority, the national competition regulator that investigates mergers, cartels and abuse of dominance and enforces consumer protection law. The body is created and named by statute (Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013) and exercises powers principally under the Competition Act 1998 and the Enterprise Act 2002, now complemented by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. Key functions include UK merger control (Phase 1/Phase 2), market studies and market investigations, antitrust enforcement with administrative fines, acceptance of commitments and remedies, criminal cartel enforcement, director disqualification, and consumer law enforcement....

CAT upholds CMA’s Ecolab/Holchem decision: appeal dismissed; SLC confirmed; structural divestiture of Holchem Laboratories required; customer-portfolio remedy rejected

Published by a LexisNexis Competition expert

Practice notes

CASE HUB ARCHIVED —this archived case hub reflects the position at the date of the judgment of 21 April 2020; it is no longer maintained. See further, timeline and commentary.

Case fACTs

Outline

Ecolab Inc brought an Appeal against the Competition and Markets Authority’s decision of 7 October, which barred Ecolab’s completed takeover of The Holchem Group Limited and required the full divestment of The Holchem Group Limited (i.e. to unwind the deal).

Latest development

On 21 April 2020, the CAT handed down its judgment, dismissing the appeal in its entirety.

Parties

Ecolab Inc. (Ecolab), headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a United States-based global supplier of water, hygiene and energy technologies and services to the food, energy, healthcare, industrial and hospitality sectors.
Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)

Background

The transaction

On 30 November 2018, Ecolab completed the acquisition of Holchem. The transaction was announced on 5 December 2018.

The CMA’s investigation

On 24 December 2018, the CMA issued an initial enforcement order to Ecolab under section 72(2) of the Enterprise Act 2002. The CMA then opened its phase 1 inquiry on 13 February 2019. On 10 April 2019, the CMA determined the acquisition satisfied the test for...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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