Nicholas Levy

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2025 was a fascinating year for UK competition and consumer enforcement, with the CMA changing its policies and practices in a number of areas. Our Year in Review summarises the most important developments of the past year and what we expect in 2026, as the CMA implements its reworked procedures for merger and market cases, begins to use its new consumer fining powers, and imposes digital conduct requirements for the first time. We also anticipate a Government consultation on significant changes to the decision-making model for mergers and markets.

On May 8, 2025, the European Commission (the “EC”) launched a public consultation on the EU Merger Guidelines (together, the “Guidelines”), which describe the framework applied by the EC to assess the competitive impact of horizontal and non-horizontal mergers (the “Consultation”).[1]  The Consultation responds to the Draghi Report’s call for “more forward-looking and agile” EU merger control that takes greater account of innovation and future competition in assessing mergers.[2] 

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has cleared the Vodafone/Three[1]merger subject to behavioural remedies. The transaction will bring together two of the four largest UK mobile network operators and potentially transform the UK telecoms landscape. The CMA’s approval decision comes against the backdrop of widespread scepticism of consolidation in the mobile telecommunications sector across Europe.  It also departs from the CMA’s previous policy of seeking structural remedies to address competition issues and blocking problematic deals where no structural remedy could be found.

On 21 May 2024, the UK Government published updated guidance on the application of the National Security and Investment Act (NSIA).  This includes:

In September 2022, the General Court partially annulled the European Commission’s 2018 Google Android decision, which fined Google €4.3 billion for abuses of dominance relating to apps it offers for its Android mobile operating system (“OS”).[1]  The Court also found that the Commission’s investigation suffered from procedural errors.  It reduced the fine by €200 million.

In a landmark decision announced on September 6, 2022 (“Decision”), the European Commission (“EC”) prohibited the acquisition by Illumina, a U.S. company specialising in genomic sequencing, of GRAIL, a U.S.-based start-up developing early cancer-detection tests (“Transaction”).[1]

In a significant judgment rendered on July 13, 2022 (“Judgment”), the EU’s General Court validated the position taken by the European Commission (“EC”) in a March 2021 Guidance Paper encouraging national competition authorities (“NCAs”) to use Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation (“EUMR”) to refer transactions to the EC that do not meet national merger control thresholds, but which they believe may threaten to significantly affect competition within the EU.