While investigating a merger, the Competition & Markets
Authority ('CMA') has often requested the merging parties
to provide their internal documents, that is, those documents
generated internally by an organisation during the ordinary course
of its business. These internal documents can include study
reports, presentations, emails, hand-written notes etc.,
irrespective of where they are stored -sent/deleted/outbox/inbox of
custodians, hard-drives or cloud, external media, shared folders
etc. The CMA has considered these documents to be an important
source of evidence during merger investigations and through this
Guidance, has tried to set out the manner in which the parties are
expected to respond to requests for internal documents, the scope
of such requests as well as penalties for
non-compliance.
