Author: Muvija M and Paul Sandle
LONDON, Jan 19 (Reuters) – Britain aims to improve its competition system, pledging to make it “faster, more predictable and more balanced” and launching formal consultations on what could be a major overhaul of one of the world’s toughest regulatory frameworks.
The government said it planned to speed up and streamline antitrust investigations and “work closely with competition regulators while maintaining their independence.”
The consultation recommends changes to the way the CMA makes decisions on mergers and acquisitions and market investigations to ensure that market remedies are regularly reviewed and to provide businesses with greater certainty as to whether a transaction will face merger controls.
It added: “The proposals will be progressed in close collaboration with the CMA and will not alter the independence of the CMA’s decision-making from ministers.”
The CMA said on Monday it would review its historical interventions to check whether it is still necessary to reduce compliance burdens and identify 33 market remedies (60% of all measures implemented) that may no longer be needed.
The government also said the state-owned development bank will invest 25 million pounds ($34 million) in Kraken Technologies, its largest direct financing, to support the artificial intelligence energy software company ahead of a possible London listing.
The British government said its investment in Kraken, which was spun off from Britain’s Octopus Energy last year, was worth $8.45 billion after changes to the British Business Bank’s mandate allowed it to take a larger, riskier stake in a key expansion.
“For too long, the UK’s most promising companies have had to look abroad for the support they need to grow,” said Business Secretary Peter Keir.
“We’re betting big on industries where the UK can win, backing our innovators with real firepower and cutting the red tape that holds them back.”
BBB, which is owned by the government’s commercial department but is operationally independent, will invest £50 million each in venture capital firms Epidarex Capital and IQ Capital, the statement said.
Kraken, which provides energy software to utilities and energy groups including EDF, National Grid and Tokyo Gas and has 70 million global customers, “may be listed in London” after the spin-off, the government added.
($1 = 0.7448 British pounds)
(Reporting by Muvija M and Paul Sandle; Editing by Mark Potter and David Gregorio)
