Ofcom updates Competition Act enforcement to align with new digital powers

The proposed revisions signal a more aggressive regulatory stance toward anti-competitive conduct in the UK digital and streaming sectors. By integrating powers from the 2024 Act, Ofcom is streamlining its ability to penalize market abuse and reach settlements more efficiently. This alignment with the Competition and Markets Authority suggests a unified front in policing digital platforms that control content distribution and consumer data. For streaming providers, this means stricter oversight of exclusivity agreements and platform dominance. Watch for the final decision in Spring 2027 to see how settlement discount structures are finalized.

Ofcom's consultation sits within a broader UK regulatory restructuring that began when the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act received Royal Assent in May 2024. The Act granted the Competition and Markets Authority new powers to designate firms with Strategic Market Status and impose conduct requirements on dominant digital platforms. The CMA opened its first Strategic Market Status investigation into Google's search and advertising dominance in January 2025, marking the first live application of the designation regime that Ofcom is now aligning its own enforcement procedures to mirror. This parallel structure means streaming and telecoms companies face coordinated scrutiny from both regulators under harmonized procedural frameworks.

The Competition and Markets Authority has been actively reshaping its enforcement toolkit throughout 2025 and 2026 to match the expanded mandate. The CMA published revised guidance on penalty calculations under the new regime in March 2026, raising maximum fines for digital market breaches to 10% of global turnover and introducing expedited settlement tracks that reduce penalties by up to 20% for early cooperation. Ofcom's proposed settlement procedure revisions directly reference these CMA benchmarks, signaling that companies under investigation by either regulator will face comparable financial exposure and similar procedural timelines. The alignment also extends to information-gathering powers, where both agencies can now compel data from platforms without first obtaining a court order in urgent cases.

For streaming and digital content markets specifically, the enforcement convergence carries practical implications for platform conduct. Ofcom's 2025 Media Nations report found that the top three streaming services accounted for 71% of total UK viewing time among subscribers, a concentration figure that could trigger scrutiny under the revised guidelines if exclusivity arrangements or bundling practices are deemed anti-competitive. The CMA has already signaled interest in examining how content licensing exclusivity interacts with consumer choice in digital markets, and its 2026 annual plan identified streaming platform bundling and data-sharing agreements as priority areas for potential investigation. Companies operating across both telecoms and streaming verticals, such as BT Group and Sky, face the prospect of dual-regulator oversight under procedurally identical frameworks.