Submissions to the Competition and Markets Authority’s current consultation on merger efficiencies have a clear theme:

• Relax the rules.
• Loosen the approach.
• Give efficiency claims more room to breathe.

That’s hardly surprising, is it, given the commercial benefits of a more relaxed regime to merging firms and their advisers?

More complex cases + more deals = more advisory work.

Which is not to say, there aren’t arguments for change. As I’ve written about before, there is a lot more scope for some firms to deploy stronger efficiency arguments than they have in the past.

The question is whether it requires a significant change or relaxation of approach, rather than just a more welcoming tone and better guidance.

Personally, I think it’s the latter.

But leaving that aside – here’s the uncomfortable truth:

The consultation itself asks no hard questions about the consequences of a significant change.

If you ask a room full of interested people whether they support “efficiencies” you’ll get an enthusiastic ‘yes’. It’s the regulatory equivalent of asking who’s supports motherhood and apple pie.

What’s missing is scrutiny.

In the current climate, there’s a real risk that momentum — political, commercial, rhetorical — pushes the CMA toward a more permissive stance without fully confronting what that means for competition and, ultimately, for UK consumers.

So before any course is set, here are three questions the CMA should be asking itself:

1. Where is the evidence?

What empirical support underpins the claims being made for a different approach? Are we seeing robust evidence — or well-crafted advocacy?

2. What gives?

If the CMA devotes more time and resource to evaluating efficiencies, what will it do less of? Enforcement is a matter of priorities. Every policy shift carries trade-offs. What are they here? And what costs do they bring?

3. What changes next?

How would a significantly more permissive approach alter the volume and character of cases? Would we see more marginal mergers? Even more speculative efficiency claims? And are those scenarios sustainable — institutionally, economically and, ultimately, politically?

Efficiencies matter. But so does policy discipline. If the CMA is significantly to recalibrate its approach, it should do so with eyes wide open — grounded in evidence, clear about trade-offs, and aware of the risks.

Anything less would be easy. The hard part is asking the right questions.

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