Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Competition and Markets Authority definition

What does Competition and Markets Authority mean? In legal practice, the Competition and Markets authority (cma) is the UK competition regulator for merger control, antitrust enforcement and market studies, and it enforces certain consumer protection laws. It is a statutory body created by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013; from 1 April 2014 it assumed the functions of the Competition Commission and the competition and specified consumer functions of the office of fair trading. Its principal powers arise under the Competition Act 1998 and the Enterprise Act 2002, with enhanced consumer and digital markets powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act...

UK CMA merger control: substantive assessment (SLC test, counterfactuals, market definition, horizontal/vertical theories of harm, efficiencies, entry) and sectoral regimes for media, energy networks, water, rail and health

Published by a LexisNexis Competition expert

Practice notes

Mergers assessment guidelines

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) may prohibit mergers that qualify for investigation under UK Merger control where they are expected to bring about a substantial lessening of competition (SLC).

Broadly, there are two categories of merger:

horizontal mergers — deals between businesses supplying competing products/services
non-horizontal mergers — deals either between firms at different points in the supply chain (vertical mergers), or firms at the same level that do not compete (conglomerate mergers)

On 18 March 2021, the CMA updated the way it assesses mergers (the Mergers assessment guidelines) to reflect major economic shifts since its 2010 guidance.

In summary, the CMA has:

addressed developments in digital markets and responded to recommendations in reports such as the March 2019 Furman Report and the May 2019 Lear Report
incorporated case law and the CMA’s experience over the last decade
included guidance on how sustainability considerations may feature during merger assessment
emphasised that uncertainty is not necessarily an obstacle to reaching findings on key issues such as...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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