United Kingdom: CMA closes investigation into Google and Meta “Jedi Blue” agreement and combines case with Google ad tech investigation

On 10 March 2023, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) closed its investigation into whether Google and Meta entered into an anti-competitive agreement to exclude Google’s competitors from the advertising market due to administrative priority grounds. The CMA is no longer investigating Meta in this case but will continue investigating whether Google has abused a dominant position through its conduct in relation to header bidding services. This continued part of the investigation will be conducted in combination with an existing investigation into Google’s conduct in ad tech (Case 51145).