Citation 2013 c 24 | Royal assent 25 April 2013 | |
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Long title An Act to make provision about the UK Green Investment Bank; to make provision about employment law; to establish and make provision about the Competition and Markets Authority and to abolish the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading; to amend the Competition Act 1998 and the Enterprise Act 2002; to make provision for the reduction of legislative burdens; to make provision about copyright and rights in performances; to make provision about payments to company directors; to make provision about redress schemes relating to lettings agency work and property management work; to make provision about the supply of customer data; to make provision for the protection of essential supplies in cases of insolvency; to make provision about certain bodies established by Royal Charter; to amend section 9(5) of the Equality Act 2010; and for connected purposes. | ||
The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 (c 24), also known as ERRA, is a major Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom aimed at reforming the regulatory environment faced by small and medium-sized business. It establishes a UK Green Investment Bank (part 1), reformed several aspects of employment law (part 2), cut regulation (part 5) and address a miscellany of other regulatory issues. The Act also strengthens the regulatory settlement on mergers and anti-competitive behaviour (parts 3 and 4). In doing so, part 3 of the Act established a new combined Competition and Markets Authority, which took over the functions of the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission. It received Royal Assent on 25 April 2013.
Competition provisions
The major feature of the Act was the merger of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and Competition Commission to form a single Competition and Markets Authority responsible for both "Phase 1" and "Phase 2" investigations, allowing greater synergy between the two. The ERRA also strengthened the criminal penalties for cartel behaviour by removing the requirement that such behaviour be dishonest; it "will be enough for prosecutors to show that an individual knowingly participated in one of the categories of criminal cartel agreement ... and that relevant information about the arrangements was not to be given to customers, or published, before its implementation".