Bill To Merge OFT And CC Introduced Into Parliament

On 23 May 2012, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) published the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill (the Bill), which was introduced into Parliament on the same day. The Bill implements expected reforms to the UK competition regime, alongside reforms relevant to many other areas of business practice, including employment law, green investment, copyright law and executive pay.

Here, we concentrate on the competition reforms, which are found in Parts Three and Four of the Bill. The reforms involve extensive and detailed changes to all competition law enforcement procedures.  We set out the main aspects below.

Previously, on 15 March 2012, BIS had confirmed its intention to overhaul the UK competition rules. Please see  here for our Law-Now on the March announcement, which the current Bill largely reflects.