Competition Markets Authority
Introduction
If you are a party involved in one of the CMAs Competition Act, market or merger cases, the CMAs Procedural Officer provides a way in which you can raise procedural issues that you have not been able to resolve with the CMA Group or staff member responsible for the investigation.
The procedural issues that you can raise with the Procedural Officer vary depending on the type of case.
The Procedural Officer is independent from CMA investigations, case teams and decision makers. The role of the Procedural Officer is intended to ensure that procedural issues can be addressed quickly, efficiently and cost effectively.
The Procedural Officer also chairs oral hearings with parties in Competition Act investigations.
Procedural Officer role, scope and process: Competition Act 1998 investigations
Scope
The Procedural Officer determines significant procedural complaints that arise in Competition Act investigations. Significant procedural complaints considered by the Procedural Office are in particular, those relating to:
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deadlines for parties to respond to information requests, submit non-confidential versions of documents or submit written representations on the Statement of Objections, Supplementary Statement of Objections or any Draft Penalty Statement
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requests for confidentiality redactions of information in documents on the CMAs case file, in the Statement of Objections, in a Draft Penalty Statement or in the final decision
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requests for disclosure or non-disclosure of certain documents on the CMAs case file
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issues relating to oral hearings, including, for example, with regard to issues such as the date of the hearing
The Procedural Officer is not able to review CMA decisions beyond those listed above, for example decisions on the scope of requests for information or decisions relating to the substance of a case.
Applications to the Procedural Officer
The Procedural Officer becomes involved only at the request of a party to an investigation and only after the party has been unable to resolve the issue with the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) of the investigation. A party wishing to refer an issue to the Procedural Officer needs to make an application as soon as possible after being notified of the SROs decision on the issue in question and, in any event, within five working days of that notification.
The application should be no longer than five sides of A4 paper and should include:
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the name and contact details of the applicant
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the name and contact details of lawyers acting for the applicant (where appropriate)
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the CMA case name and reference number
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the date of the determination of the issue by the SRO responsible for the investigation
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a short summary of the issue in question, including a summary of the case teams original decision (where relevant), the decision of the SRO responsible for the investigation, the reason that the applicant is applying for a review of that decision and the outcome that the applicant is seeking
The applicant must also provide copies of relevant correspondence between the applicant and the CMA relating to the issue in question and copies of any relevant information or documents where these are in the applicants possession. If the applicant has concerns about providing a copy of such information or documents to the Procedural Officer, they should raise these concerns with the Procedural Officer before submitting the application.
On receipt of an application, the Procedural Officer will provide an opportunity for each of the case team and the party to present their arguments orally on the telephone or at a meeting, before issuing a decision on the issue.
The Procedural Officers decisions in Competition Act investigations
The Procedural Officer will deal with the application as quickly as possible. There is an indicative administrative target that decisions will be taken in most cases within 10 working days from receipt of the application. The Procedural Officer will reach a decision within 20 working days from receipt of the application. This timeframe is extendable by no more than 20 working days if there are special reasons to do so.
The Procedural Officers decision will be binding on the CMA case team. The Procedural Officers decision, or a summary of it, will be published on the CMAs webpages, generally at the time the decision is made by the Procedural Officer or at the end of the CMAs investigation. Publication will be subject to redaction of confidential information.
Published Procedural Officer decisions in Competition Act investigations:
- (13.3.23)
- (11.3.21)
- (25.4.22)
- (31.12.20)
- (30.9.20)
- (16.9.19)
- (21.8.19)