On 16 March 2011, the UK government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) launched a consultation proposing a number of reforms to the UK competition regime. After considering the responses on its proposals from interested stakeholders, the BIS released its final response on 15 March 2012. In a retreat from a wide array of changes proposed in the initial consultation, the number of changes actually endorsed is relatively limited. This DechertOnPoint focuses on the following significant changes:
- Procedural updates to the UK merger control system;
- The merging of the existing UK competition authorities to create one single over-arching body: the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA); and
- Amendments to the criminal cartel offence to increase the prospect of successful prosecution.
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