At The Economist Antitrust Summit, CMA’s Sarah Cardell Calls for Competition With Context in a Fragmented World

Key Takeaways

• Competition in Service of Growth: Competition and Markets Authority Chief Executive Sarah Cardell argued that competition policy should be deployed as a tool to drive economic growth and household prosperity, not treated as an end in itself.
• Independence With Engagement: The CMA reaffirmed its statutory independence while making clear it will not operate in a political vacuum, choosing instead to engage constructively in debates around industrial strategy, affordability and resilience.
• Targeted Enforcement, Faster Impact: From merger control to digital markets, the authority signaled a focus on pace, proportionality and opportunity cost, clearing deals where possible and intervening decisively where genuine anti-competitive harm exists.
• Strategic Use of the Digital Regime: Just over a year into the UK’s digital markets framework, the CMA has delivered three uncontested Strategic Market Status designations and advanced targeted conduct requirements in search and mobile ecosystems.
• Competition as an Economic Lever: Beyond enforcement, the CMA is advising government on scaleups, public procurement and regulatory reform, applying a pro-competition lens to support growth, resilience and affordability.

Deep Dive

Speaking at The Economist’s Antitrust Summit 2026, Sarah Cardell did not pretend the ground beneath competition policy is steady. A year ago, the global economic order still felt strained but familiar. Today, she suggested, it feels fundamentally unsettled.

Long-standing assumptions about globalization, supply chains and the role of the state in markets can no longer be taken for granted. Growth remains a political imperative. Affordability pressures weigh on households and businesses alike. At the same time, national security and economic sovereignty have moved from the margins to the centre of policymaking.

Markets, Cardell observed, do not sit apart from geopolitics. They are now deeply intertwined with it, and the Chief Executive of the Competition and Markets Authority set out a case not for retreat, but for recalibration.

Not Competition for Its Own Sake

Cardell acknowledged that some commentators have questioned whether competition agencies risk being sidelined, or politicised, in an era of industrial strategy and state intervention.

Her response was direct. The CMA’s statutory mandate to promote competition and its operational independence remain intact, she said. The authority remains accountable to Parliament, not ministers. But independence does not mean isolation.

Operational independence, in her telling, does not require the CMA to operate in a political vacuum or cling to an overly narrow ideological defense of competition in every context. Instead, she argued for “leaning into” the real-world economic and geopolitical environment in which the UK now operates.

That thinking is embedded in the CMA’s new three-year strategy. Competition is not positioned as an end in itself, but as a powerful tool deployed in service of national priorities, particularly economic growth and household prosperity. Nor is it presented as superior to other levers such as tax, subsidy, investment or regulation. It is one instrument among several.

The shift, she suggested, is one of mindset.

Doing the Day Job

Cardell was careful to stress that the CMA is not stepping back from its core enforcement role. If anything, she said, the authority remains as committed as ever to being a strong, independent enforcer and consumer champion.

What will change is how it goes about that work.

The new strategy emphasizes outcomes that clearly benefit the UK interest, with a sharper focus on speed to impact and opportunity cost. Effective enforcement, she argued, should not sit in tension with a regulatory environment that supports business and investor confidence.

That approach is reflected in the CMA’s internal “4Ps” transformation program (pace, predictability, proportionality and process).

In merger control, Cardell said the CMA will use a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. Only a small number of genuinely anti-competitive deals that cannot be remedied, she said, act as a genuine brake on growth or household prosperity. The authority’s starting point is that any deal capable of being cleared, unconditionally or with effective remedies, should be. Intervention will remain robust where required, but tightly focused on cases with real UK impact and where the CMA is best placed to act.

At the same time, she made clear that resolute enforcement remains part of the picture. Truly anti-competitive mergers, she said, do not serve growth or prosperity and the CMA will not hesitate in those cases.

Enforcement With Purpose

Cardell also pushed back against any suggestion that pragmatism equals leniency.

In 2025, she noted, the CMA recorded the second-highest year of fines for breaches of competition law in its history. The authority has repeatedly gone to court over excessive pricing by drug manufacturers supplying the NHS.

But she defended the use of other tools (guidance, warning letters, commitments and settlements) where they deliver faster and more tangible results. As an example, she pointed to £100 million secured from house builders last year, contributing directly to affordable housing for low-income households.

Principle alone, she argued, does not put money back in consumers’ pockets or free up regulatory resources to tackle the next pressing issue.

The CMA is also shaping its enforcement portfolio around clear strategic themes, including bid rigging, algorithmic collusion, drip pricing and fake reviews, areas where consumer harm is both direct and visible.

A Bespoke Digital Markets Regime

Turning to the UK’s digital markets competition regime, Cardell described a deliberately tailored model designed to move quickly and target specific harms.

Just over a year into the regime, the CMA has delivered three uncontested Strategic Market Status designations and begun advancing conduct requirements in key areas.

In search, draft measures aim to improve choice, transparency and attribution for publishers in relation to Google’s AI overviews and AI mode. In mobile ecosystems, the authority has secured commitments from Google and Apple intended to increase certainty, transparency and fairness for businesses reliant on app stores, with monitoring and reporting requirements designed to create immediate benefits without prolonged litigation.

For Cardell, this is not softness. It is focus.

Competition as an Enabler of Growth

Perhaps the most significant theme of the speech was the CMA’s ambition to act not only as an enforcer, but as an enabler of competition aligned with broader economic strategy.

With the UK government advancing its Modern Industrial Strategy, Cardell argued that a more muscular state creates opportunities to shape markets intentionally. Competition may not always be the primary objective in such contexts, she acknowledged. But it should always be considered as part of the toolkit.

She highlighted three areas of active engagement with government: scaleups, public procurement and regulation.

In discussions with firms across several strategic sectors, businesses indicated that CMA enforcement, including merger control, is not a decisive factor in whether they scale in the UK. What they did emphasize was the importance of competitive markets, well-designed procurement frameworks and regulatory environments that support growth.

Public procurement, representing around £360 billion annually, was described as a major lever. Done differently, Cardell argued, procurement can surface innovative suppliers, reduce over-reliance on single firms or geographies and stimulate productivity.

The CMA’s civil engineering market study suggests authorities often default to low-risk, low-cost options, potentially missing opportunities to foster entry and innovation. Meanwhile, work with the Ministry of Defense is examining how procurement could better support high-growth firms while maintaining competitive pressure.

There is also an enforcement dimension. Collusion in procurement, she noted, can inflate prices by up to 20%. The CMA is piloting data-driven screening of procurement data across departments including the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education and the Ministry of Justice, with analysis already supporting enforcement action.

On regulation, Cardell said the CMA is helping government identify frameworks that may unnecessarily restrict competition, investment or scaling. Evidence from civil engineering points to overlapping accreditations that may disproportionately burden SMEs. In defense, the authority is supporting Ministry of Defence “regulatory sprints”, beginning with autonomous systems, to examine where regulatory change could enhance competitive dynamics.

The same joined-up approach, she said, is being applied to affordability, with the CMA working with government to identify markets for potential review, including private dentistry and other significant areas of household spending.

Reimagining Competition in an Uncertain World

Cardell closed with a broader reflection. In a world marked by geopolitical shocks and rapid technological change, it is tempting for institutions to retrench or cling to familiar doctrine.

Her message was that the CMA intends to do neither.

Instead, she presented an authority seeking to be bold but pragmatic, independent but engaged, and focused relentlessly on impact. Competition policy, in this framing, is not an abstract discipline operating at the edge of economic policy. It is a central instrument in shaping growth, resilience and prosperity in an increasingly uncertain world.

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