Happy New Year everyone.

As we look forward to 2023, what better time to review some of the key features of UK merger control in 2022?

Let’s start with the number of cases. (In coming posts I’ll look at other aspects).

Here’s my calculation of the number of Phase 1 published decisions by year (excluding those cases that were investigated but failed to meet the jurisdiction thresholds and national security-driven cases):

2014	62
2015	70
2016	60
2017	61
2018	55
2019	58
2020	47
2021	40
2022	41

The headline point is clear: the number of published Phase 1 decisions remained near its record low in 2022, despite the UK taking on responsibility for more merger cases after leaving the EU. Some predicted a big increase in the CMA’s caseload as a result.

A number of factors are relevant here, including:

• Deal numbers – still affected by pandemic-related disruption
• The type of deals being done
• How selective the CMA is in the deals it chooses to investigate

What’s your view on the balance between these?

Do feel free to post your comments in the box below.