DMCC digital markets competition regime comes into force on 1 Jan 2025

The DMCC Act introduces the most significant changes to competition law for over 20 years including a new digital markets competition regime, changes to merger control, changes to the application of competition law and the powers of the CMA, as well as various changes in the realm of consumer law too.  

The government today passed the necessary secondary legislation which confirms that the parts of the Act relating to digital markets and competition law will come into force on 1 January 2025.  

The changes include:  

• Digital Markets: The new digital markets competition regime applying to firms with Strategic Market Status (SMS). This establishes new rules that will apply to those firms designated as having SMS, including the imposition of conduct requirements, the ability to make so called ‘pro-competitive interventions’ and requirements to report on certain acquisitions. For more detail see our previous articles here.  
• Merger Control: The most significant changes to the UK merger control regime since the Enterprise Act 2002, including changes to the jurisdictional thresholds which determine when the CMA can review a particular transaction. These changes include a new threshold which means that the CMA is likely to have jurisdiction over many of the mergers carried out by firms with a UK turnover of more than £350 million. See more on this here.   
• Competition: Various other changes to competition law which, amongst other things, strengthen the CMA's power to investigate and enforce competition law in the UK. Businesses will need to take account of these changes, for example, to ensure they are acting in accordance with the new obligation to preserve documents when a person knows or suspects that the document would be relevant to an investigation that is being, or is likely to be, carried out by the CMA.  The other changes are summarised here.