The Competition and Markets Authority, the UK’s primary competition and consumer authority, has published its first annual report since it took over the functions of the Competition Commission and certain consumer functions of the Office of Fair Trading in April 2014.

The independent non-ministerial government department is responsible for carrying out investigations into mergers, markets and the regulated industries and enforcing competition and consumer law.

During its first year of existence the CMA’s work has been focused on creating an effective competition and consumer authority with the right policies, processes and people to deliver its 5 strategic goals – deliver effective enforcement; extend competition frontiers, refocus consumer protection, achieve professional excellence and develop integrated performance.

The CMA is currently working on two separate inquiries in the water sector – the Pennon Group / Sembcorp Bournemouth Water Investments merger inquiry which opened in April 2015 and Bristol Water’s  appeal against Ofwat’s final PR14 price determination which opened in March 2015.

The report sets out details of the competition and consumer work the CMA has carried out over the last year, including the following:

• Reviewed a total of 83 mergers across all sectors of the economy, 6 of which are currently under detailed scrutiny at phase 2
• Opened 3 regulatory appeals in the energy and water sectors
• Concluded a 3-year case against the promoters of a £20 million pyramid-selling scheme that resulted in 9 criminal convictions.
• Launched 2 of the largest market investigations ever undertaken, into the energy and retail banking markets
• Concluded 2 market investigations into payday loans and private motor insurance and also completed a market study into residential property management services
• Launched 5 Competition Act cases, and concluded 4 more; launched 5 consumer projects, and concluded 5 more

The CMA also set up and chairs the UK Competition Network, bringing all the UK regulators (including Ofwat) with a specific role to support and enable competition within their sectors together to discuss key issues and share best practice. The network is aiming to encourage stronger competition across the economy for the benefit of consumers and to prevent anti-competitive behaviour in the regulated industries.

In January the CMA were among a number of Government organisations set to obtain consultancy services on a wide range of issues and sectors, including energy, water, competition and market behaviour, via a wide-ranging contract worth up to £100 million.

Commenting on the Report, David Currie, CMA chairman, said:

“As a new organisation, the key theme of our first year has been establishing our foundations, upon which we will continue to build in the years to come. The CMA has made good progress against the challenging commitments we set ourselves, and exceeded our target of realising £10 of direct financial benefits to consumers for every £1 spent.”

“This has been possible thanks to the commitment of the CMA’s staff during a challenging first year. It is still early days for the CMA and while we have started much important work we are ambitious and excited to do more next year. We will continue to improve the CMA’s performance and make steps towards achieving our ambition to be recognised as a world-class competition and consumer agency, making a real difference for consumers and businesses, and helping to drive productivity and growth in the UK economy.”

Alongside the Annual Report the CMA has also published its impact assessment report which shows that the CMA and its predecessors have delivered direct financial benefits to consumers of £11.20 for every £1 of taxpayer money received over the past 3 years, exceeding the 10:1 target set by the government.

Click here to download the CMA's Annual Report 2014-15.