Competition and Markets Authority
The concurrency arrangements came into force on 1 April 2014 and are designed to strengthen co-operation between the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and sector regulators, reflecting the governments desire to see sectoral regulators make greater use of their competition powers. The CMA is held accountable for these arrangements and is required by law to publish an annual assessment on how they are progressing.
The report outlines relevant developments during the past year, covering new and ongoing competition investigations in the regulated sectors over the past 12 months, examples of co-operation between the CMA and sectoral regulators as well as markets and policy work to promote competition in the regulated sectors.
Andrea Coscelli, CMA Executive Director of Markets and Mergers, said:
These regulated sectors are vital to households, businesses, and to the economy as a whole. As well as new competition law enforcement cases in the energy and financial services sectors, the report shows that sector regulators have focused on progressing their ongoing cases.
There has been continued positive co-operation between the individual sector regulators and the CMA, for example in relation to our ongoing market investigations into energy and banking. We have also seen other significant work to promote competition in the regulated sectors, such as projects on passenger rail services and opening up competition for non-household water customers. The UK Competition Network is working well in bringing these organisations together to share common experiences and expertise.
Over the next year we will look to build on this progress and continue to work closely with sector regulators to help these essential markets to work better for the benefit of consumers.