On 4 May 2023, the CMA launched an ‘initial review’ of AI foundation models.[1] The review follows the UK government’s request in its AI White Paper[2] for UK regulators to consider their role in the development and deployment of AI. The review is intended to develop competition and consumer protection guidance/principles that will “best guide the development of these markets going forward.”
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has identified “roll-up” acquisitions (the acquisition of several targets in the same sector) by financial investors, such as private equity firms, as an enforcement priority. In this post, we discuss the CMA’s enforcement focus, its recent decisional practice, and implications for merging parties. The main takeaways are:
Rapidly emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technology is poised to transform how businesses operate across almost all sectors, from social media to education to healthcare. Globally, governments and regulators are starting to react to the potential risks, but also opportunities, that AI and machine learning models can bring. Earlier this month, data protection authorities in Italy, Canada and South Korea have opened a series of investigations into data privacy issues related to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, with the Italian agency temporarily banning the use of ChatGPT in the country.
Cleary Gottlieb partners Nicholas Levy, Paul Gilbert, and Jackie Holland, and associate Courtney Olden co-authored the “UK” chapter of the Chambers Merger Control 2021 Global Practice Guide.