The Competition and Markets Authority has removed 23 market remedies, removed two in part and retained six in its final decision on 31 of the 33 remedies in its strategic review, it said on Wednesday.
The revoked orders and released undertakings have come off the register of orders and undertakings in force, so the businesses they bound no longer have to comply with them.
The CMA said removal of the 23 remedies reduces unnecessary burdens on businesses. It said businesses must dedicate resources to complying with remedies and the CMA or other bodies must monitor them, so it is important to assess whether they are still needed.
The review looked at 33 remedies that the CMA had identified as possibly no longer needed to deal with the problems they were designed to fix, for reasons including being superseded by new laws and regulations.
The case page records that the Home Credit Market Investigation Order 2017 and the Carbonated Drinks Undertakings 1993 (Coca Cola & Schweppes Beverages) have been varied.
Two further remedies remain undecided. The CMA said it is still considering consultation responses on whether to partially remove the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order and the Private Motor Insurance Market Investigation Order, “given the range of views received”. It said an update will be published later this month.
The case page gives the orders as the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order 2017 and the Private Motor Insurance Order 2015, and says decisions on them are expected in November.
The final decision follows a provisional decision published on 12 August. That proposed removing 23 measures, retaining six in full and partially removing four, covering retail banking, home credit, private motor insurance and certain soft drinks.
Two of those four proposed partial removals are therefore confirmed in the final decision, and the other two are the pending retail banking and private motor insurance orders.
In August the CMA gave examples of the redundant remedies it proposed to remove. They included those on how extended warranties on domestic electrical goods are sold, package holidays and tour operators, and the on-air promotion of magazines published or sold by the BBC.
The provisional decision proposed removing Parts 2, 4 and 6 and Articles 30, 31 and 32 of the Home Credit Market Investigation Order 2007 (as varied 2011 and 2024), keeping all other parts and articles.
For retail banking, it proposed removing Parts 3, 4, 7, 9, 10 and 11 of the 2017 order and retaining the other parts. For private motor insurance, it proposed removing Part 2, Schedule 1a, Schedule 2 and other listed provisions, retaining the rest.
The six remedies the CMA proposed to retain in full related to current account switching services, local bus services, two measures on the supply of liquefied petroleum gas used as domestic heating fuel, and two on soft drinks.
In the August announcement, the CMA said the 33 remedies under review were 60% of all CMA market remedies in place.
Juliette Enser, the CMA’s executive director of enforcement and markets, said at that stage: “Market remedies play an important role in protecting competition and consumers, but they should only remain in place where they are needed.”
The review began on 19 January with a consultation on whether the 33 remedies, put in place after market investigations, remained appropriate. Responses were invited by 2 March. The provisional decision was open for responses until 11 September.
The CMA said the retail banking and private motor insurance decisions will be published later this month.