The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has provided some insight into its preparations it is making to take on the role of the UK state aid regulator post-Brexit.
In a presentation to the Competition Section of the Law Society on 9 October 2018, Janette Enser, the Interim Director for state aid explained that:
- Draft legislation is expected to be presented "in the Autumn" to transpose the EU state aid rules (with only technical adjustments) as the UK's domestic state aid regime after Brexit;
- If there is an Implementation Period after 29 March 2018 (rather than a no deal scenario), the European Commission will continue to receive notifications of aid and make assessments on aid measures until 31 December 2020:
- The CMA is preparing to take notifications of aid from 30 March 2019 in case there is no deal;
- Based on previous figures, the CMA estimates that it will deal with 20 to 30 state aid cases per year, but is taking into account the possibility of a higher level of numbers arising, for example, from political or economic change;
- More staff are being recruited and the CMA is comfortable that it is on track to receive online notifications of aid from March 2019 if required;
- The CMA expects to publish guidance in the New Year on how it will make substantive assessments of notifications of aid;
- It will be a matter for negotiation between the EU and the UK as to whether the European Commission or the CMA makes decisions on notifications which have been made to the Commission before the date of Brexit but which have not been determined by then;
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