Merger Assessment Guidelines (CMA129)
Guidelines for businesses and their advisors on the CMA’s substantive approach to assessing mergers.
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These guidelines set out the substantive approach of the CMA to its analysis when investigating mergers. The guidelines are designed to help companies and their advisers in assessing whether competition law concerns might be raised by a merger.
18 March 2021: Updated guidelines published.
The revised guidelines take effect upon the date of publication (18 March 2021) and will be applied in new merger cases from that point onwards. This includes any Phase 1 investigations formally commenced after 18 March 2021 (including under sections 22, 33, 44 and 61 of the Enterprise Act 2002) and any Phase 1 investigations formally referred to Phase 2 after 18 March 2021 (ie when a reference is made to the chair of the CMA for the constitution of a group under Schedule 4 to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013). In the latter case, where a Phase 1 investigation has already formally commenced prior to 18 March 2021, the revised guidelines will only apply from the point at which any formal reference to Phase 2 is made.
These guidelines have been revised in order to bring them up to date with current best practice. The CMA’s previous guidelines were published in 2010, and since then, markets have evolved and changed at a rapid pace. Building on recommendations made by the Furman and Lear reports in 2019 on how the CMA should approach its assessment of digital mergers, the updated guidelines reflect the legal framework within which the CMA undertakes merger assessments and have been updated to take account of the CMA’s recent experience and case law. The CMA consulted on the updates to its guidelines from 17 November 2020 to 8 January 2021.
For more information, see the Updates to the CMA’s Merger Assessment Guidelines (CMA129) consultation page.
Updates to this page
Last updated 18 March 2021 + show all updates
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Updated merger assessment guidelines published.
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First published.