Storylines / Organisation
Competition and Markets Authority
7 developments involving Competition and Markets Authority in 2 countries and bodies. The most recent is CMA finds Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership is not a merger it can review, 5 Mar 2025.
KeyStory
- CMA finds Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership is not a merger it can review
Large investments by cloud providers in AI labs escaped UK merger review in this case, because the CMA found influence short of control.
- CMA finds Amazon’s $4bn Anthropic partnership falls outside UK merger rules
Cloud providers investing in model developers saw that the UK’s turnover and share-of-supply thresholds can keep a large AI partnership out of merger review.
- CMA treats Microsoft’s hiring of Inflection staff as a merger, then clears it
Large firms hiring a start-up’s team and licensing its technology learned that the UK can review such ‘acqui-hires’ under merger law even when no shares change hands.
- CMA says it has ‘real concerns’ about Big Tech’s grip on foundation models
AI partnerships between large technology firms and model developers became candidates for UK merger review, which the CMA then opened for Microsoft and Inflection and for Amazon and Anthropic.
- UK keeps AI with existing regulators and asks them for AI plans by 30 April
UK companies were told sector regulators would lead, with binding rules considered only for the most capable models, and regulators such as Ofcom and the CMA had to publish how they would apply the five principles within three months.
- CMA proposes seven principles for competition in AI foundation models
Model developers and the cloud and chip firms supplying them learned which conduct the UK competition regulator would watch, including restricted access to inputs, self-preferencing, tying and bundling.
- UK white paper leaves AI oversight to existing regulators under five principles
Companies using AI in the UK were to answer to their usual sector regulators, each applying the same five principles, while the EU was negotiating a single AI law.