1. Chillin’ Competition Conference
A Brave New World… or Perhaps Not?
Natura Gràcia
25 October 2017

2. Waiting for the lightbulb moment…

3. And the clock is ticking
30 March 2019
The UK outside the EU, but treated as though a member state for some purposes?
Article 50 extension?
Withdrawal agreement takes effect in future?
Formal deadline for agreement
Transitional arrangements?
29 March 2017
December 2017?
September 2018
“Sufficient progress”
Practical deadline for agreement
“Phase one”
“Phase two”
Negotiations – withdrawal issues
Ratification
Negotiations – future relationship
Money
Citizens’ rights
Northern Ireland border

4. The mergers puzzle The end game
30-50 additional Phase 1 cases / 6 additional Phase 2
UK turnover outside EEA
Voluntary regime: really?
Global mergers, global remedies
Divergence in theories of harm (e.g. innovation?)
Public interest/national security
But until then
Cut-off for allocation of cases
Appeal process
Article 9 or 4 requests?
“We have good co-operation with DG COMP in this area; it listens carefully to what we say, but being the decision-maker is a significant difference that could be of benefit, because some times those decisions might go in a direction we did not care for”, Lord Currie, Chairman of CMA, 14 September 2017

5. And then antitrust The end game 50% increase in workload
cooperation/information sharing: ICN, OECD, ECN?
Global cartels: another authority to deal with
Cherry picking on substance…
“Particularly in the early years, it is in no one’s interest to have a huge amount of litigation, challenge and uncertainty about all sorts of concepts that are effectively settled and understood”, Sarah Cardell, General Counsel of CMA, 14 September 2017
But until then
Case allocation/prioritisation
Commitments, monitoring
Leniency

6. Can the CMA handle it?
We will be involved in much bigger and arguably more complex cases than we typically deal with currently– Lord Currie, Chairman of CMA, 14 September 2017
Voluntary merger regime but can’t control parties’ notifying
Sectoral regulators
Information sharing and cooperation (dawn raids, evidence)
If no extra £££, both CMA resource management options have ‘political’ angle:
scale back discretionary work (101, 102, market studies and investigations); or
go lighter-touch and slipstream EC or other agencies
Choices, choices, choices… A