UK Competition Authority to Big Tech: Antitrust Probes Are Coming

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has warned tech giants, including Amazon and Google, that they plan on launching a number of antitrust probes in the coming months, according to the Financial Times.

In an interview with the paper, CEO of the CMA Andrea Coscelli said the watchdog is planning a series of antitrust investigations into their practices over the next year.

Brexit
The report comes as the UK split from the European Union gives the regulatory body newfound independence and it is expected to be given extra authority to police large technology companies with the creation of a new sector-specific unit.

The EU already has various probes into the large technology companies, including Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN). And, although the UK investigations are to be independent, Coscelli noted that the UK plans to work alongside Brussels on other joint antitrust investigations.

“There are quite a few cases against the digital platforms in Brussels today and a number of these cases include the UK market,” Coscelli said.

Current Brussels Probes
The number of probes against the big technology companies ranges from e-commerce to app stores and from internet search to cloud services.

Amazon is under investigation regarding how it uses rivals’ sales data and whether it unfairly favours its own products. The EU previously opened an antitrust investigation in Apple’s App Store and Apple Pay practices. A similar probe is underway on Alphabet’s Google about favouring their own services on Android smartphones.

The latest draft rules from the EU, released in December, suggested that US technology firms could face fines of up to 10% of annual turnover and could even be broken up, in an attempt to curb their powers.

It is clear that authorities around the globe are concerned that the tech giants are getting too big and too powerful and the new CMA digital markets unit that will launch in shadow form in April should give the UK greater authority to rein in their power.