A Bill for Better Markets

The UK is poised for new legislation which the government claims will improve Britain’s competitiveness.  The aim of the Better Markets Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech is “to open up markets, boost competition, give consumers more power and choice and make economic regulators work better”.

The government says that the reforms will give consumers more protection when things go wrong.  It is also claimed that they will simplify the way economic regulators operate to make things more straightforward for business and cut red tape.

Another proposal is to speed up decisions from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) “to benefit both businesses and consumers”.  It is heralded that this reform will “help deliver the manifesto commitment to increase competition and consumer choice in the energy market”.

Following very shortly after the CMA issued proposed remedies in its retail banking market investigation the reforms remind that such investigations as are pending in energy and banking are lengthy and a huge drain on business and regulatory resources.  However, it is not clear whether further truncating the 18 month timetable would be achievable in practice and whether it would produce the right results if the CMA is put under pressure to deliver within a curtailed timeframe.

 The new legislation will follow the raft of recent reforms to UK competition law under the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015.  It is still too early to tell whether those changes to the enforcement machinery are achieving their desired effects.  While we know the broad shape of the better markets reforms, they have appeared rather from the left field leaving many among the competition law bar wondering what’s next.  More change is not always for the better.