London, January 19, 2026 — The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a consultation to review whether dozens of existing market remedies should be removed, as part of a broader effort to reduce regulatory burden and compliance costs for businesses.
The CMA said the review covers remedies across multiple sectors, including financial services, travel and energy. Market remedies are measures imposed after market investigations to address problems affecting competition, but the authority noted that businesses must devote time and resources to meet these requirements, making it important that remedies remain “fit for purpose.”
In total, the CMA has identified 33 market remedies — around 60% of all market remedies currently in place — that it believes may no longer be necessary to address the issues they were originally designed to fix. The authority said these measures may have been overtaken by changes such as new laws and regulations, or by technological developments that have reshaped how consumers buy goods and services.
As an example, the CMA is considering whether to remove remedies related to marketing practices by large travel businesses introduced more than a decade ago, when most travel bookings were made in-store. Removing these requirements could reduce compliance costs for the companies affected, the authority said.
The CMA also pointed to possible changes for major retail banks, which could benefit if rules requiring the provision of payment transaction histories to customers are scrapped. The authority noted that customers can now easily access such information online.
The CMA said it excluded remedies from the review that it believes continue to deliver clear benefits. These include measures intended to ensure families have access to information when seeking funeral services, as well as reforms aimed at helping households and small businesses on expensive energy tariffs secure better deals.
CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said remedies play an important role in protecting consumers and ensuring fair competition, but can also place demands on businesses. She said the review is intended to ensure only those remedies delivering “real impact” remain in place, in line with the CMA’s recent work to deliver outcomes with “pace, predictability, proportionality and enhanced process.”
The consultation will run until Monday, March 2, 2026, and the CMA has directed interested parties to its consultation page for more detail on each remedy under review. The authority added that it has also recently launched a separate consultation on releasing 37 merger remedies.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-regulatory-review-aims-to-ease-the-burden-on-businesses
