Show me the money: generosity toward CMA in yesterday's budget a signal of more regulatory intervention against big tech

The UK's competition regulator the Competition and Markets Authority was a big winner in Rishi Sunak's budget yesterday with a grant of £130.5 million (around $US180 million) by 2024-2025 to ensure it can promote competition. 

The funding will see the Competition and Markets Authority receive a total of £370.9 million across a three-year period, starting in 2022, and includes additional funding to roll out the dedicated Digital Markets Unit within the CMA.

We have previously blogged on the DMU's mandate and current activities (read more about the UK Government’s Digital Markets Unit proposals here and a commentary on the CMA's "February 2021 refresh” on its Digital Markets Strategy of 2019 here) but the Unit awaits legislative underpinning: which most commentators do not foresee being enacted before 2023 at the earliest.  

Today's announcement is the clearest sign yet of UK Government determination to establish a full function regulator ahead of a European Digital Markets Act equivalent in the UK to complement online harms legislation.