A Decade of OECD Competition Trends, Data and Insights

Executive summary

This special edition of OECD Competition Trends presents the main trends in global competition enforcement between 2015 and 2024 based on an annual survey of competition authorities (CompStats). The OECD CompStats database currently includes ten years of data across 66 jurisdictions.

The analysis focuses on the evolution of merger activity, reviews market studies, provides an overview of the evolution of antitrust enforcement and presents the main trends in resources of competitions authorities. Key insights are summarised below.

Trends in merger activity

Global trends in mergers in the past decade have been impacted by macroeconomic dynamics and shocks, with merger notifications peaking in 2021. Periods of strong GDP growth tend to spur deals, while periods of recession or slower growth dampen them. COVID-19 was the most impactful shock, causing a relevant drop in 2020. Overall, the number of transactions grew over the past decade, with 2021 recording the highest number of notifications in a year (more than 12 000).

Competition authorities have maintained stable merger intervention levels. In the past decade, the average intervention rate remained relatively constant (between 4 and 7%) despite the increased number of mergers reviewed (around 20% increase between 2015 and 2024). Notably, the number of mergers prohibited or challenged increased in OECD jurisdictions, where most prohibition decisions are taken. However, the number of mergers approved with remedies slightly decreased.

The past decade has seen alignment in the characteristics of merger regimes. There is a prevalence of two-phase, mandatory ex-ante merger control regimes in CompStats jurisdictions, with turnover thresholds being the most common criterion to trigger notification.

Market studies

Market studies remain a relevant tool for competition authorities. Competition authorities conduct, on average, three market studies per year. This number was stable during the decade for the full sample, while OECD jurisdictions observed a surge in the number of studies conducted. While market studies differ in extent and scope, this is an indication of the continued relevance of this tool for competition authorities to assess whether competition in a market is working effectively and identify recommendations to address any issues if not.

Trends in antitrust enforcement

There was an overall decline in competition enforcement activity over the past decade. This includes key enforcement measures in cartel and abuse of dominance cases, such as the number of investigations, infringement decisions, dawn raids and fines imposed in cartels. Potential reasons contributing to the decline in enforcement activity might be:

• priorities for competition authorities increasing beyond enforcement, such as focus on increased merger activity, new responsibilities and a focus on advocacy activities

• increased complexity of enforcement cases

• COVID-19 disruptions and the decline in leniency applications

• conclusion of major cases at the beginning of the decade and potential deterrence.

Enforcement decisions against abuse of dominance saw the greatest decline. During the decade, almost 80% of decisions related to cases involving anticompetitive agreements, with the remainder relating to unilateral conduct. The proportion of unilateral conduct cases declined from over 25% at the beginning of the period to around 15% more recently. However, abuse of dominance investigations represented a bigger share, peaking at 39% in 2021 but declining in recent years.

Jurisdictions are becoming more likely to accept commitments in abuse cases. While the number of settlements and commitments fell, in line with the overall fall in enforcement activity, abuse of dominance have seen a higher proportion of cases closed with negotiated procedures in the last five years.

Trends in resources and institutional setting

Overall, resources increased in the last decade, including both budgets in nominal and real terms increased in most of the CompStats jurisdictions. While this also holds true for the average number of staff dedicated to competition, at jurisdictional level, the picture regarding staff growth is mixed. More than 25% of the jurisdictions saw a decrease in their competition staff in the past decade.

Some competition authorities changed their structure in response to digitalisation. The last decade saw relevant changes in authorities’ institutional settings and internal organisation that went from hiring staff with new sets of skills to creating separate data units to centralise digital skills.