The CMA Energy Market Review: a remedy without a cause?

On 7 July 2015, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority published the provisional findings of a market investigation into the UK energy market.  It found an Adverse Effect on Competition (AEC) in the way in which energy companies retail gas and electricity to UK households.  In this Brief we examine the CMA’s provisional findings and explore some of the public policy issues raised by its proposed remedies.  Having, notably, spent much of its report cataloguing the failures of energy regulator Ofgem’s efforts to micro-regulate the energy market, the CMA’s apparent confidence in its ability to find and implement prescriptive pricing remedies is striking.