Competition Issues in UK Grocery Retailing

Over the past 20 years, grocery retailing has probably been the sector most investigated by the UK competition authorities. Given that three quarters of the grocery M&A deals that have been reviewed have been cleared unconditionally, this might be taken to indicate a fairly light touch approach to the sector. However, merger review decisions have played an important role in signaling the types of deals that are likely to be acceptable. The effectiveness of this signaling system appeared to b