The CMA’s Investigation Of Competition Restrictions Regarding Browsers

By: Damien Geradin (The Platform Law Blog)

On 22 November 2022, the CMA launched a market investigation into cloud gaming and mobile browsers. In this post, I focus on this investigation as it relates to mobile browsers. This blog has already discussed cloud gaming in an earlier post, and we will return to the topic in the future.

CMA market investigations must typically be concluded within 18 months from the date that the reference is made. They consider whether there are features of a market that have an adverse effect on competition (“AEC”), in which case the CMA has the power to impose its own remedies on businesses and it can also make recommendations to other bodies such as sectoral regulators or the government. A market investigation is thus a powerful instrument.

In the Final Report of its Market Study on Mobile Ecosystems (the “Final Report”), the CMA devoted a full chapter to “mobile browser and mobile browser engine competition” (Chapter 5), in which it identified a variety of competition issues that should be addressed. The findings of the CMA were widely supported by the submissions made by third parties. Further analysis is provided in Appendix F of the same report…

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