A report from the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee (BEISC) has concluded that fines imposed on large tech firms for breaching anti-trust laws in the UK have been viewed as ‘a small business cost’ and has called for more stringent action.
Proposals for a Digital Markets Competition and Consumer Bill were trailed by the government in the Queen’s Speech.
The new measures that would empower the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) and Digital Markets Unit (DMU) to rein in abusive tech giants by dropping the turnover threshold for immunity from financial penalties from £50m to £20m, and hiking potential maximum fines to 10 per cent of global annual income.
The Committee said that there is “strong evidence of abuses of market dominance” within digital markets and warned that “consumers and others are at risk” until a Bill is published and passed.
Last week, the CMA re-issued an order against Facebook owner Meta to sell the recently acquired...