United Kingdom: Announced CMA decision to combine investigation into Google for market power abuse in the advertising technology sector with investigation on header bidding services

On 10 March 2023, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that it was combining its investigation into Google regarding the potential abuse of market power in the advertising technology sector (Case 51145) with a separate investigation into whether Google has abused a dominant position through its conduct in relation to header bidding services (Case 51134). In particular, the CMA investigation on header bidding aims to determine if Google's conduct in relation to header bidding constituted an abuse of its dominant position in the online display advertising market. Header bidding is the term for a service that enables sellers to offer advertising space to various buyers at the same time and compare the offers more efficiently.