The CMA's decision to approve the Vodafone/Three merger has generated a lot of commentary among competition professionals. A lot of this has focused on the remedies which are behavioural rather than structural. But another very significant aspect of the decision is the way in which the CMA has dealt with efficiencies.

The rapid growth in fibre networks across Europe has been accompanied has created an opportunity to establish sustainable infrastructure competition. But this also brings with it new challenges for regulators. One of these is how to address discount schemes proposed by fibre operators that also have SMP. In this report, we discuss this issue and how regulators are going about it.

We recently completed a modelling project on behalf of a large UK water and sewerage company analysing the incidence of water affordability problems within their customer base. This provides an essential analytical tool that allows them to simulate the impact of potential outcomes from the current regulatory review and also to evaluate the impact of possible customer support options.