Review of the CMA’s Approach to Vertical Mergers

In a report for the CMA, we reviewed four merger cases that were assessed by the CMA in 2017, which were either purely vertical or had a strong vertical component. We focused on both the quality of the assessment and whether the CMA got to the right result. We also offered some recommendations for further improvement. We revisited our report to see whether there have been any notable changes in the CMA’s approach since we made our recommendations. Against that background we performed a high-le