On 3 December 2020, the UK's Competition and Markets
Authority (“CMA”) opened a
consultation on its draft annual plan for 2021 to 2022 (the
“Draft Plan”).1 The
Draft Plan sets out the key themes on which the CMA hopes to focus
in the coming year, inviting views and comments from interested
parties by the end of January 2021. The Draft Plan, to no great
surprise, is heavily focused on the two issues which have come to
define 2020: the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit. With both issues
contributing to a steep increase in the CMA's workload over
the past 12 months, the regulator had indicated that,
“quick, effective and high impact enforcement”
remains a priority in order that confidence in the markets, and
thus the wider economy, can be restored.
