BMW v CMA - The CAT and High Court hit the brakes on the regulator's extraterritorial powers

In February the CAT/High Court handed down a judgment dealing a significant blow to the UK’s CMA, finding that the CMA does not have the power to compel production of documents from foreign companies which do not have a sufficient UK nexus. This is the first time the extraterritorial scope of the CMA’s information gathering powers has been tested, the issue having only come into focus following Brexit, when the CMA lost access to the information channels of the European Competition Network. 

Nicole Kar, Verity Egerton-Doyle and Erasmia Petousi have written an article in Competition Law Insight about this important judgment and the broader implications it could have for CMA investigations and even merger reviews or market studies/investigations, if it is not overturned in the pending appeal.