As part of its efforts to promote competition within digital markets, the government is considering major changes to the UK’s merger control regime. As currently proposed, the changes would make it significantly harder for digital platforms deemed to have strategic market status, to acquire British startups.
In Better Together, authors Sam Bowman and Sam Dumitriu explain how mergers in tech can enhance competition and why proposals to lower the burden of proof used by the CMA to block mergers involving digital firms with strategic market status risk harming the UK’s startup ecosystem.