CMA

After its pivotal 2023 intervention in Microsoft’s $69B Activision deal, CMA coverage has shifted toward enforcing digital-market rules on Google, Apple and Microsoft.

Who they are

The CMA is the UK competition authority, appearing in coverage as the regulator assessing major mergers and using expanded digital-market powers to set conduct requirements for large technology platforms. Its stories repeatedly place it opposite Google, Microsoft and Apple, while its remit also reaches consumer-protection rules on hidden fees and fake reviews.

The recent arc

Coverage peaked in 2023Q2 amid the CMA’s block of Microsoft’s $68.7B Activision Blizzard acquisition, on cloud-gaming competition grounds. The ensuing story became a high-profile test of remedy design: the authority rejected further Microsoft remedies in July, invited a restructured transaction, then approved the deal in October after Microsoft sold certain Activision cloud-gaming rights to Ubisoft.

More recently, the focus has moved from a single merger battle to platform oversight. The CMA designated Google with strategic market status in search and ads in 2025, required an AI Overviews opt-out for publishers in June 2026, and ordered greater search-ranking transparency and data portability. It has also proposed changes to Apple and Google developer-payment steering rules and Apple’s NFC access, while examining Microsoft’s business-software bundling and possible strategic market status. Getty Images’ termination of its Shutterstock merger after the CMA conditioned approval on an editorial-business sale shows the authority remains consequential in conventional merger review as well.

The tension

The coverage centers on whether the CMA can constrain entrenched platform power without conflicting with the UK government’s pro-growth agenda. That tension has become concrete in its treatment of Google’s search and AI products, Apple’s mobile controls and Microsoft’s software and gaming businesses; Google has warned oversight could slow launches, while the government has pressed for pro-business decisions and replaced chair Marcus Bokkerink with interim chair and former Amazon executive Doug Gurr.

Why it matters

If this trajectory holds, the CMA will matter less only as a deal gatekeeper and more as a continuing rule-setter for how dominant digital services operate in the UK, from search visibility and AI publisher choice to app payments, device access and enterprise-software bundling. The unresolved question in the coverage is whether its enhanced powers can produce durable competition measures while retaining political support for a growth-oriented regulatory posture.

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