Digital Markets Digital Markets - public consultation
The Government set out its plans for the regime in detail in its public consultation which ran from July to October 2021.9 The consultation received 105 written submissions, with the majority of respondents signalling strong support for the proposals and a desire for them to be delivered quickly. In May 2022, the Government published its response to the consultation.10 The consultation response detailed the final policy positions for the new regime and how they had been developed in line with evidence received during consultation. It confirmed the Government’s intention to enshrine the policies in law. The Government’s policy is to:
	Empower the CMA to designate undertakings which are very powerful in particular digital activities, with Strategic Market Status in relation to those digital activities.
	Ensure that designated undertakings comply with rules (called conduct requirements) on how they treat consumers and other businesses in relation to the activities in which they have been designated. These conduct requirements could prevent a firm ranking its own products more highly in a search result where that harms consumers, for example.
Give the CMA powers to address proactively the root causes of competition issues in digital markets. It could intervene to impose interoperability obligations on designated undertakings to help new competitors enter the market, for example.
Require designated undertakings to be more transparent about mergers which pose risks to competition.
Allow the CMA to enforce obligations on designated undertakings and impose penalties including fines of up to 10 per cent of a firm’s global turnover for breaches.
Empower the CMA to resolve payment-related breaches of conduct requirements to deal on fair and reasonable terms through a backstop enforcement tool called the 'Final Offer Mechanism'.