The CMA Sets Out its Programme of Action in its Annual Plan 2025 to 2026

3 Apr 2025 02:41 PM

The CMA has published its Annual Plan for 2025 to 2026, which sets out the programme of action the regulator will take in the upcoming year to continue to promote competition and protect consumers, whilst driving growth and investment. Below, techUK outlines the key points of note.

Reflecting the Government’s Strategic Steer

The finalised guidance establishes how the CMA will reflect the Government’s new draft strategic steer (techUK insight can be accessed here), which situates the work of the CMA within the wider context of the Government’s growth mission, emphasising the need for a strong, independent competition and consumer protection regime. This approach is aligned with the CMA’s ‘4Ps framework’, pace, predictability, proportionality, and process, which outlines the CMA’s renewed approach to merger control and the digital markets competition regime.

Supporting Growth, Opportunity, and Prosperity

In the guidance, the CMA pledges to continue ‘supporting growth, opportunity, and prosperity for the UK,’ through actions including:

• Continuing their programme of consumer-facing markets work, including interventions in the infant formula and veterinary services markets. This includes a commitment to apply a “sharper priority” to markets’ work that could have a multiplier effect on growth. An example of this is recent work on electric vehicle charging infrastructure, with the forthcoming intention to unlock investment in critical infrastructure and key horizontal enablers that can drive growth.
• Focusing on public procurement in their work to deter restrictive, exclusionary, and anti-competitive practices, as the Government works to improve public services and invest in economic infrastructure. Under the newly enforced Procurement Act, suppliers found to have infringed competition law can be added to the new central debarment register and excluded from all public procurement for up to five years.
• Following on from the CMA’s renewed approach to mergers, there has been “substantial progress” towards implementing these changes, with more to come later this year. For example, by June 2025 the regulator pledges to establish a new Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to complete the pre-notification phase of a merger investigation within 40 working days. Also, in June 2025, the CMA plans to update their guidance on how they interpret and apply the relevant legal tests of ‘material influence’ and ‘share of supply’, which will be subject to public consultation.

Implementing the New DMCCA Regime

From April 2025, the CMA will be able to decide whether certain consumer protection legislation has been breached without having to take businesses to court. It will also be able to impose fines of up to 10% of annual worldwide turnover and work with firms to enforce undertakings agreed to resolve a consumer-facing problem, in instances where the law has been broken. The CMA will publish final guidance and an ‘Approach’ document on their new consumer protection powers. This will include their enforcement priorities for the first 12 months of the new regime, with a focus on “the most egregious harms”; namely, aggressive sales practices that prey on vulnerability, false information, and imbalanced and unfair contract terms.

As announced at techUK’s Tech Policy Conference 2025, for firms designated with Strategic Market Status (SMS) under the digital markets regime, the CMA will publish an initial ‘roadmap’ for possible future interventions. Roadmaps for the current SMS investigations will be published alongside consultations on the proposed decisions in June (for search) and July (for mobile).

Broader Work Programmes

The CMA’s Microeconomics Unit (MU) Growth Programme, focused on supporting the Government’s growth mission and Industrial Strategy, will progress in the year ahead, with a focus on critical drivers and blockers of growth. Their advocacy work will also complement broader efforts to support growth and investment.

The specialist Subsidy Advice Unit (SAU) will conduct research and information-gathering to support its periodic report on the operation and impact of the subsidy control regime. Whilst the Office of the Internal Market (OIM) will carry out its statutory functions, including publishing its data strategy roadmap update.

techUK’s Response to the CMA’s Consultation on the Draft Annual Plan

The CMA previously consulted on its draft Annual Plan, which techUK submitted a response to; our key recommendations included:

• Address concerns about the impact of the CMA’s work programme on economic growth. For example, the CMA could initiate a review of all open cases to ensure that approaches are aligned in promoting growth.
• Expand or update its programme of work taking an explanatory and horizon scanning approach to emerging markets, such as foundation models.
• Check-in with its business stakeholders and trade groups at other times during the year to report on progress in implementing its Annual Plan.
• Review its joint memorandum with the ICO on the intersection between data protection and competition regulation to ensure both frameworks align in driving growth and investment. The CMA and ICO should consult with stakeholders as part of this review.
• Leverage the flexibility afforded by the DMCCA to adopt a more cohesive approach to enforcement in digital markets.
• Delay the implementation for Part 4, Chapter 1 of the DMCCA from April 2025, until one year after the final guidance was published (i.e. December 2025). This would align with the timeline for subscription contract changes and reflect the unexpectedly late publication of the draft guidance.

We welcome the strong emphasis on growth expressed throughout the Plan, but note that the recommendation to review its joint memorandum with the ICO still remains pertinent. The Plan also commits to taking particular care to ensure that growth and innovation benefits are prioritised in areas of new and emerging technology, noting that over the past year the CMA has worked with the DRCF to identify opportunities for industry and regulators on emerging technologies, such as digital ID and synthetic media. This is another promising addition since the draft guidance, which meets one of our key asks expressed in the consultation response.

We were also pleased to hear during Sarah Cardell’s speech at techUK’s annual Policy Conference this year, that the CMA plans to pursue a phased approach to implementing their guidance on drip pricing and to introduce a three-month delay on enforcement of their fake reviews powers, focused on supporting business compliance.

techUK’s summary of the draft Annual Plan can be accessed here.

techUK continues engaging on key regulatory areas of work and will be working with the regulators as they implement their Annual Plans.