GovWire

At a time when households across the UK are feeling the effects of the rising cost of living, ensuring that markets are competitive is more important than ever before. The Annual Report and Accounts gives a summary of the Competition and Markets Authoritys performance and accounts for the period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022, highlighting our key achievements.

These highlights include:

• For every 1 we spent on our operating costs, the average benefit to customers over the last three years was 22.50. The CMAsimpact assessment for 2021 to 2022 has also been published recently.

• The CMAs action to protect consumers from breaches of competition and consumer protection laws and poorly functioning markets this has ranged from imposing millions of pounds of fines on pharmaceutical companies for breaches of competition law, to issuing guidance for IVF clinics on consumer rights, recommending improvements in the provision of childrens social care and putting in place new legal obligations to give better support for consumers when arranging funeral services.

• The CMAs new functions we have launched the shadow Digital Markets Unit, set up and launched the Office for the Internal Market, and restarted our work on the UKs future subsidy control regime by preparing for the creation of the Subsidy Advice Unit, each of which brings a new set of powers, functions and responsibilities. We have also tackled a growing number of complex, multinational merger and antitrust cases, often with a digital focus.

• A summary version of the Annual Report and our key achievements in 2021 to 22 has also been published today.