Covid-19 and The Role of a Competition Authority: The CMA’s Response to Price Gouging Complaints

Abstract

The Covid-19 crisis has had an exceptional and longlasting negative impact on health and economies. One consequence has been to dramatically change the way we shop, to increase the demand for some essential products and to disrupt supply chains. It has also led to unprecedented interventions by governments around the world to save lives, to protect jobs and to sustain economies. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) set up a taskforce to monitor and respond to competition and consumer problems arising from the pandemic. From mid-March to mid-November 2020, the CMA received more than 115,000 complaints from consumers. Over 15,000 of these complaints concerned price rises, mostly related to a narrow set of food and hygiene products. In particular, some very substantial price increases were reported for hand sanitisers and for various food products and toilet rolls early in the pandemic (Figure 1). The great majority of such complaints