The UK Competition and Markets Authority replaces the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission as the UK’s Competition Authority

As of April 1, 2014, the UK will have a new competition law enforcer. To date, the UK has been unusual among European Union (EU) Member States in having two distinct competition authorities, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the Competition Commission (CC). They will now be replaced by a unified authority, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The UK Government intends the CMA to deliver what it has termed a world-class competition regime for the UK. Among its stated goals is to increase competition enforcement and an assessment of how competition works in new or rapidly changing markets, such as online markets. To this end, the CMA has a £52 million budget for 2014/15, the largest budget for a competition law authority in the EU. The changes are expected to lead to more public