Competition | UK Regulatory Outlook October 2025

CMA consults on merger remedies review 

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on 16 October published a consultation on its draft merger remedies guidance. This version has been updated and extended following the CMA's review of merger remedies undertaken earlier this year, which involved a public call for evidence, literature review and engagement with international competition authorities, UK sectoral regulators, businesses and industry associations. The consultation runs until 13 November. 

The draft guidance forms part of the CMA's ongoing work to ensure UK merger control remains effective, evidence-based and responsive to the needs of business and consumers. It allows for a more flexible approach towards when and if behavioural remedies may be accepted. There is an emphasis on remedy effectiveness, with the CMA requiring that remedies meet specific effectiveness criteria before proportionality is considered. This includes requiring a high degree of confidence that remedies will achieve their intended effect and ensuring remedies remain effective throughout the expected duration of the substantial lessening of competition (SLC). 

The draft guidelines include more detailed guidance on structural remedies, particularly divestiture packages, with expanded discussion of composition risks, purchaser risks and asset risks. The guidance clarifies that the CMA's starting point for divestiture will be whole business overlaps rather than carve-outs comprising a package of "pick 'n' mix" assets. 

Regarding behavioural remedies, the draft guidance makes clear that, in appropriate cases, they can provide effective solutions (such as Vodafone/3). The draft provides a more comprehensive assessment framework identifying four categories of risks potentially presented by behavioural remedies. These are: specification risks, circumvention risk, distortion risks, and monitoring and enforcement risks. It distinguishes more clearly between enabling remedies and controlling remedies, with the latter generally focusing on limiting adverse effects rather than addressing the source of the SLC. 

Competition in veterinary services comes under scrutiny 

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has provisionally found that competition is not working as well as it could in the market for veterinary services for household pets. The investigation received a response from around 45,000 pet owners and 11,000 veterinary workers. 

The CMA is proposing a comprehensive package of remedies involving action by the CMA, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and the government. This includes requiring all veterinary businesses to publish detailed price lists on a comparison website, provide written estimates for treatments over £500, automatically give pet owners prescriptions for repeat medications so they can buy cheaper medicines online, cap prescription fees at £16, improve complaints handling, and make it easier for practices to switch out-of-hours providers. Crucially, the CMA is recommending that government urgently introduce a new Veterinary Surgeons Act to replace the 1966 regulatory regime, which currently only regulates individual vets rather than the businesses they work in. These conclusions are provisional, and the CMA is seeking feedback from all interested parties by 12 November 2025. 

EU and UK look to update regulation of technology transfer 

The UK’s Assimilated Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation and the EU's Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation (TTBER) both expire on 30 April 2026.  

In the EU, the European Commission has published draft revisions to the TTBER and guidelines for consultation, which closed on 23 October. The draft TTBER and guidelines clarify technology market share methodology (including a presumption of zero market share where no contract product sales exist) and extend the grace period to three years. The draft guidelines also propose covering certain data licensing agreements. There is further guidance on the "soft" safe harbour for technology pools (these conditions are transparency, no double-dipping and FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) obligations when the pool licenses-out to third parties. There is also guidance on the introduction of a soft safe harbour for licensing negotiation groups (LNGs). The Commission is holding an online "reality check" on 12 November to discuss some of the proposed changes with stakeholders. 

In the UK, on 30 September, the CMA issued final recommendations to the secretary of state to replace the Assimilated TTBER with a UK-specific Technology Transfer Block Exemption Order (TTBEO). The CMA recommends largely carrying-over the existing regime and maintaining consistency with the EU block exemption but with certain targeted updates: 

• Removing “utility models” from the list of technology rights covered by the exemption but adding “copyright in a database” and “database rights” to the list.
• Defining active and passive sales in line with the Vertical Agreements Block Exemption Order, as these terms are used in the recommended TTBEO.
• For technology markets, introducing an alternative safe harbour based on the presence of three or more independently controlled competing technologies.  
• Market share calculation refinements (use of a three-year average where the prior year is unrepresentative, extending the “footprint” method which considers sales of products containing the licensed technology to both parties) and lengthening the grace period when market share thresholds are exceeded to three years (the latter change is mirrored in the Commission's draft TTBER).
• Retaining the distinction between hardcore and excluded restrictions subject to minor amendments.
• Keeping technology pools and LNGs outside the TTBEO but addressing them in guidance.  

In updating previous regulations of a similar kind, in relation to horizontal and vertical agreements, the secretary of state has accepted the CMA's recommendations without substantial amendment. We anticipate a similar approach here. 

UK competition regulator consults on scale-ups and competition policy 

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published a discussion paper and launched a public consultation on how competition policy can better support fast-growing UK companies or "scale-ups" to become global leaders. The paper explores three main areas:  

• Removing barriers to growth, including through more pro-competitive public procurement and smarter, agile regulation.  
• Improving access to essential resources such as data and technology that innovative firms need to expand and compete.
• Providing clarity on when businesses can lawfully collaborate without breaching competition rules.  

The CMA recognises that supporting scale-ups can drive important benefits including economic growth, job creation, strategic resilience against global shocks and help retain valuable innovation within the UK.  

The paper also tackles complex questions about mergers and acquisitions, including whether foreign takeovers of promising British firms should be treated differently to domestic takeovers and how to balance competition concerns with broader industrial strategy goals. The CMA is seeking feedback from businesses, investors, and other stakeholders by 21 November, with further findings to be published in early 2026. 

For further information and details of how to respond, please refer to the CMA’s discussion paper. 

Class action against Motorola certified 

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has decided to grant a collective proceedings order (CPO) on an opt-out basis in a class action against Motorola (Spottiswoode v Airwave Solutions Limited & Ors.) The case is notable as it is the first of its type to be brought before the CAT that is publicly funded, rather than funded by a private commercial funder. 

The proposed class representative (PCR) claims that Motorola had a dominant position in the relevant market and charged excessive and unfair prices for Airwave Services. The claim was brought on behalf of all purchasers of Airwave Services. Motorola contested certification.  

In deciding whether or not to make the CPO, a key question before the CAT was whether the claim should be allowed to proceed on an opt-out or opt-in basis. The CAT held that if the claims proceeded on an opt-in basis there would be a significant impediment to access to justice for many class members who, given the majority are entities operating in public or charitable sectors, would have difficulty devoting time and resources to active opt-in participation. It therefore certified proceedings on an opt-out basis. 

The CAT also accepted the class definition proposed by the PCR, which covered direct and indirect purchasers of Airwave Services, considering it to be clear and objective. In doing so, the CAT rejected Motorola's argument that it should be replaced with a narrower definition, covering only those who directly purchased Airwave Services. 

General Court rules on Red Bull dawn raids 

The General Court's judgment in Red Bull v Commission provides clarity over the discretion afforded to the Commission in deciding whether or not to conduct a dawn raid rather than adopt a request for information (RFI) based approach.  

In 2023, the Commission received information from a single complainant suggesting that Red Bull had implemented practices to restrict sales by its competitors. Following this, the Commission decided to undertake unannounced dawn raids at Red Bull's premises in Fuschl am See, Paris, and Amsterdam. Red Bull appealed the legality of these raids to the General Court (GC). In doing this, it sought to rely on a number of grounds, including that the Commission did not have sufficient evidence of any infringement and that Red Bull's rights were infringed during the raids.  

The GC drew a distinction between the legality of a decision ordering a dawn-raid inspection and the conduct of that inspection, declining to consider the merits of the latter in this instance. The GC held that even information from a single source can be sufficient to justify a dawn raid and that the Commission is under no obligation to verify the complaint with third parties. In justifying its conclusion, the GC reasoned that any such verification could lead parties to suspect an investigation and thus compromise the inspection.  

In practical terms, the GC's decision confirms the Commission's wide discretion on whether to proceed by means of an unannounced dawn raid rather than through RFIs. In essence, proceeding by means of unannounced inspections is justifiable so long as there are reasonable grounds for considering that one or more undertakings under suspicion may be unlikely to provide the full extent of incriminating evidence in response to an RFI-based approach.