Virtual

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill: What To Expect After Royal Assent

21 May 2024

Location: 12:30-1:30pm UK Time (Zoom)
Members: FREE to attend - Book by 21 May
Non Members: Register above as a member, and attend for FREE - Book by 21 May

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill: What To Expect After Royal Assent

Highlights

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill is expected to receive Royal Assent in April 2024. The digital markets parts of the Bill seek to boost competition in digital markets. It will put in place a new regulatory regime to mitigate the market power of the large tech firms that will be designated as having strategic market status (SMS). Once a specific activity is designated by the CMA, it has powers to write bespoke conduct requirements that will significantly change how it operates. The CMA will also have the power to impose pro-competitive interventions to improve the functioning of digital markets, and review more of the SMS firms’ mergers.

As we move beyond the parliamentary process, the CMA will now publish detailed guidance on how it will exercise its wide-ranging new powers. It will then launch its designation investigations and draft the conduct requirements that will apply to the firms’ designated activities. This session provides the views of experts on different sides of the debate who have been intimately involved in designing the new regime and following it through Parliament. They will discuss the final version of the Bill, and what we can expect to happen next.

Key discussion points include:

• The shape of the Bill that emerged from the Parliamentary process.
• The extent of the CMA’s rule-making powers, and their oversight.
• How the CMA’s new processes will work.
• What to look out for in the CMA’s guidance documents.
• The CMA’s priorities in the first year of the regime’s implementation.
• The role of the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
• The enhanced merger control regime for SMS firms.

Tom Smith
Partner
Geradin Partners

Tom is a partner at Geradin Partners, having previously been Legal Director at the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Tom led the legal team on the Digital Markets Taskforce, set up by the UK Government to advise it on the new regulatory regime for ‘digital gatekeepers’ such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.  He also directed the CMA’s influential digital advertising market study, the CMA’s work on setting up the Digital Markets Unit, and its antitrust enforcement cases in the tech sector.  

Tom was previously Director of Mergers at the CMA, responsible for the delivery of the CMA’s phase 1 mergers portfolio and liaising with the European Commission. He also guided many of the CMA’s most high-profile phase 2 merger cases such as Sainsbury’s/Asda (groceries), Illumina/PacBio (genome sequencing) and BT/EE (telecoms).

Outside the tech sector, Tom has significant experience in the banking sector, having led the team that implemented the UK’s Open Banking regulations, which came out of the CMA’s retail banking market investigation.  He has worked on several abuse of dominance cases in the pharma sector.

Before joining the CMA, Tom advised companies on UK and EU competition law at the international law firm, Hogan Lovells.  He spent time on secondment to the major broadcaster, ITV plc, and the UK’s Office of Fair Trading.  He is a regular speaker at competition law conferences.

Outside of work, Tom is on the Board of Trustees of Citizens Advice Southwark, a charity providing free confidential advice on issues such as debt, housing, benefits and immigration.


Tom Smith
Tom Smith Partner
Geradin Partners
Verity Egerton-Doyle
Partner, UK Co-Head of Technology Sector & Global Co-head of Gaming
Linklaters

Verity is a counsel in Linklaters’ London Antitrust & Foreign Investment Group and co-head of the UK technology sector team.

Verity has over a decade of experience across advisory, investigatory and transactional aspects of competition law in the EU and the UK, including on vertical and abuse of dominance issues. She is particularly familiar with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, having spent time on secondment to the CMA’s mergers group, during which she sat on the CMA’s Mergers Intelligence Committee. 


Verity Egerton-Doyle
Verity Egerton-Doyle Partner, UK Co-Head of Technology Sector & Global Co-head of Gaming
Linklaters
James Hill
Principal
RBB Economics

James Hill is a Principal based in the London office of RBB Economics, where he has worked since April 2013. Since joining RBB, James has advised on a wide variety of competition cases before the European Commission, domestic competition authorities and courts including in the UK, China, France, Switzerland, Turkey and South Africa.


James Hill
James Hill Principal
RBB Economics
Kristina Barbov
Director UK Competition and Regulatory Law
Microsoft

Kristina Barbov
Kristina Barbov Director UK Competition and Regulatory Law
Microsoft
Catherine Batchelor
Director, Digital Markets Unit
Competition & Markets Authority (CMA)

Catherine is a Director within the Digital Markets Unit at the UK Competition and Markets Authority, where she is responsible for leading work to prepare for the new pro-competition regime for digital markets. She previously led the Digital Markets Taskforce, providing advice to the UK Government on the design and implementation of pro-competition measures for digital markets, building on the proposals put forward by the Digital Competition Expert Panel, chaired by Jason Furman. She also leads the CMA’s work on wider areas of the CMA’s digital markets policy.

Prior to joining the CMA, Catherine worked at the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK’s conduct regulator for financial services in a range of roles including considering competition and innovation within financial services, including a secondment to HM Treasury as Head of FinTech Strategy.


Catherine Batchelor
Catherine Batchelor Director, Digital Markets Unit
Competition & Markets Authority (CMA)

Agenda

12:25am
Audience Log On
12:30pm
Chair's Opening Remarks
Speakers:
Tom Smith - Partner - Geradin Partners
Verity Egerton-Doyle - Partner, UK Co-Head of Technology Sector & Global Co-head of Gaming - Linklaters
12:35pm
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill: What To Expect After Royal Assent
Speakers:
Tom Smith - Partner - Geradin Partners
Verity Egerton-Doyle - Partner, UK Co-Head of Technology Sector & Global Co-head of Gaming - Linklaters
James Hill - Principal - RBB Economics
Kristina Barbov - Director UK Competition and Regulatory Law - Microsoft
Catherine Batchelor - Director, Digital Markets Unit - Competition & Markets Authority (CMA)
1:15pm
Panel Q&A
1:30pm
Chair's Closing Remarks
Speakers:
Tom Smith - Partner - Geradin Partners
Verity Egerton-Doyle - Partner, UK Co-Head of Technology Sector & Global Co-head of Gaming - Linklaters

Partnership

Partnering on an event or indeed the community as a whole will increase your company’s profile and brand awareness.

We can provide bespoke value adding partnerships. We will work in partnership with you to develop a bespoke marketing solution to meet your objectives across varying events and thought leadership content. We will ensure that you gain value through the right medium, focused on your desired audience, with a true partnership that delivers value to your marketing needs. Want to know more?

Please contact Helen on 020 3433 2281 or email helen@thoughtleaders4.com