Digital Markets

On April 27th, 2021, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched its new Digital Markets Unit (DMU), which aims to promote competition and innovation in digital markets. The DMU has been established to oversee the behavior of tech giants such as Google and Facebook, who have been accused of abusing their dominant market positions.

The creation of the DMU comes after years of criticism of the CMA’s inability to keep up with the fast-changing nature of the digital economy. The CMA’s traditional tools of competition law and merger control have proven ineffective in addressing the unique challenges presented by digital markets.

The DMU’s primary focus will be on promoting competition and innovation in the digital advertising industry, which is dominated by a small number of tech giants. The DMU will have the power to impose codes of conduct on these companies to ensure they treat their competitors fairly and don’t engage in anti-competitive practices.

The DMU will also be tasked with developing new regulatory tools to address the challenges posed by digital markets. For example, the unit will explore the potential benefits of giving consumers more control over their personal data and creating new rules around the use of algorithms.