In her speech at the International Bar Association conference in September 2025, European Commission (EC) competition commissioner Teresa Ribera highlighted the increasingly important role that soft enforcement tools play in an effective competition toolkit. She considered that, in combination with “hard” tools, they can offer “agile and effective solutions” and can guide the EU economy “toward broader strategic goals” such as the green transition and digital leadership.
This approach can be seen across many jurisdictions around the globe, as regulators strive to balance the deterrent impact of hard fines and penalties (as outlined in Global cartel fines surge to highest level since 2021 and Antitrust authorities target both exploitative and exclusionary abuses of dominance) with tools aimed atensuring swifter antitrust compliance and well-functioning markets.
In the UK, for example, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has made clear its willingness to use non-fining tools to achieve “impactful outcomes” in a faster and more efficient way (so long as they do not sacrifice the regime’s overall deterrence). Then U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) assistant attorney general Abigail Slater noted that the focus for monopolization remedies will be on “carefully opening up economic opportunity” by incentivizing firms “to innovate rather than exclude,” and not “vindictively” punishing companies.
These softer tools are particularly important in fast moving digital markets, where ongoing regulatory dialogue under the DMA, for example, allows the EC to steer gatekeepers’ behavior in real time, rather than waiting to sanction them after the damage is done. Ribera noted that such conversations can “build trust, encourage early compliance, and prevent problems before they escalate.”
For businesses, as well as avoiding fines, this approach means more potential to resolve investigations without admitting fault, which can have significant implications for any private damages actions. Wrapping up investigations more quickly will also reduce the drain on management time, reputational damage, and other potential costs.
However, as we record in Global cartel fines surge to highest level since 2021 and Antitrust authorities target both exploitative and exclusionary abuses of dominance, regulators are continuing to impose hard sanctions and structural remedies where necessary, including through less traditional methods such as procurement bans and “profit skimming” powers. Hard sanctions are likely to remain the primary tool used, for example, to punish particularly egregious conduct or repeat offenders, or to make a point on a novel form of anticompetitive conduct. Significant fines are very much not off the agenda.
Early resolution: a shift towards commitments
The EC has continued to look to resolve abuse of dominance cases through commitments in order to guarantee behavioral change and increase the chances of transitioning to more competitive markets. In a commitments case, the companies involved avoid a formal finding of wrongdoing.
- In September 2025, the EC accepted legally binding commitments from Microsoft to address its concerns that Microsoft had abused its dominant position by tying its Teams tool to its popular productivity applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook). Microsoft agreed to a package of tailored, and ultimately enhanced, measures that will be in place for at least seven years. They included offering customers unbundled Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites at an appreciably reduced price and ensuring effective interoperability with certain Microsoft products and services for Teams’ rivals. Ribera commented that the Microsoft decision demonstrates that this “soft enforcement approach can be particularly important in digital markets, where new products and integration strategies often challenge the boundaries of regulation” and that accepting commitments was a swift and effective means of “open[ing] up competition in this crucial market for videoconferencing and collaboration software.”
- Similarly, the EC appears set to wrap up with commitments its investigation into whether SAP has implemented abusive practices in the aftermarket for maintenance and support services related to an on-premises type of software licensed by SAP. The authority formally opened the investigation in September 2025 and consulted two months later on ten-year long commitments offered by SAP.
- Earlier, in July 2025, the EC accepted commitments from Corning to address concerns that it had abusively concluded exclusive agreements for the supply of cover glass for handheld electronic devices. The detailed set of final commitments will dictate Corning’s dealings with the manufacturers of these devices and the companies that process raw glass, as well as its approach to patent enforcement worldwide for nine years.
Other authorities have also adopted this enforcement approach, with the Competition Commission of India reaching its first ever settlement order in 2025: Google agreed to implement a “New India Agreement” allowing TV manufacturers to license Google Play separately from other apps.
The CMA also shifted gear, concluding several antitrust investigations in 2025 with commitments, two of which involved rare examples of the CMA using ex gratia payments to resolve regulatory concerns without a formal infringement decision. In the life sciences sector, following a probe into Vifor’s alleged disparagement of a rival iron deficiency treatment, the CMA accepted legally binding commitments so “the benefits can be felt sooner” and extracted a USD30 million voluntary payment to the National Health Service (NHS). Instead of pursuing a formal infringement decision and fines, both the EC (in 2024) and the CMA (in May 2025) required Vifor to comply with corrective communications, restricted marketing, and internal compliance measures, all to be monitored by a trustee for ten years.
In October 2025, following an investigation into suspected anticompetitive information exchange among seven housebuilders, the CMA secured commitments that the housebuilders would not share certain types of information, an approximate USD132m payment towards affordable housing programs, and enhanced compliance and training measures. The commitments brought the investigation to an end, with no decision being made as to whether there had been an infringement of antitrust rules.
Undoubtedly, the CMA’s openness to commitment decisions reflects its drive to increase the pace of its work as it embeds its “4Ps” (pace, predictability, proportionality, and improved process) into practice. CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell has noted that the authority is “unapologetic about taking the most effective route to achieve meaningful impact as quickly as possible - deploying options from the full range of our toolkit and making a rational consideration of opportunity cost.”
Clarity is comfort and confidence: increased use of informal guidance and transparency
The EC has also turned to informal guidance in lieu of more heavy-handed enforcement action to steer conduct away from harming markets.
In July 2025, the EC issued its first informal guidance letters under a 2022 notice that allowed businesses to approach the authority for clarity on the application of EU antitrust rules to novel or unresolved questions. One provided comfort that the creation of a licensing negotiation group in the automotive sector (ANLG)—set up to negotiate licenses for technologies covered by standard essential patents (SEPs) expected to support decarbonization and the net zero 2050 transition—was not likely to raise concerns under the EU prohibition on anticompetitive agreements, taking into account, for example, the specific content and objectives of the ANLG, the relevant market shares of ANLG members, and the small proportional cost of licensing SEPs compared to the total cost of the downstream products.
Another approved an agreement between rival port terminal operators for the joint purchasing and setting of minimum technical specifications for container-handling equipment in ports, to accelerate the shift to battery-electric carriers and cut CO2 emissions, subject to safeguards, including to cap the volume of pooled demand and allow operators to purchase independently. The same month also saw the EC’s first opinion on the compatibility with antitrust rules for agriculture of a sustainability agreement in the French wine sector.
Elsewhere, antitrust regulators in France (relating to the creation of a system for the collective financing of the additional costs and risks associated with the agroecological transition and the creation of a platform for collecting and sharing data on suppliers’ carbon footprints in the French retail sector) and the UK (relating to builders merchants using a recommended single supply chain assurance services provider and a scheme facilitating business collaboration to co-fund regenerative agriculture and nature‑based solutions) issued informal guidance to help companies stay on the right side of antitrust compliance—see Global cartel fines surge to highest level since 2021 discussing how authorities are dealing with collaboration initiatives in the sustainability space and more broadly.
Several authorities in APAC have focused softer enforcement efforts on conduct in labor markets.
- In September 2025, the Japan Fair Trade Commission, with the Cabinet Secretariat, issued guidelines to talent agencies warning against contractual restrictions on entertainers switching agencies or going independent, and later cautioned four livestreaming agencies over post‑termination contractual restrictions on activity.
- In Australia, construction major John Holland and a labor union voluntarily terminated agreements that had required the use of only three nominated labor‑hire firms on two large New South Wales projects after the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) raised antitrust concerns. Looking forward, the Australian government has been progressing proposed legislative reforms to ban no-poach agreements, wage-fixing arrangements and non-compete clauses for low and middle-income workers. Watch this space.
Further, in an effort to create more transparency and build public awareness, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) launched antitrust-specific social media accounts for the publication of enforcement action, policy explanations and case information. The hope is that greater visibility of what constitutes an antitrust violation will boost public complaints and drive enforcement.
Regulators are cutting red tape to align with softer enforcement toolkit
In the UK, U.S., and South Korea, regulators are working with governments to actively identify and roll back rules considered to be stifling competition, growth, and innovation.
In the UK, the CMA is overhauling its own procedures to move faster and more effectively and has made it clear that its focus includes “removing anti-competitive regulation standing in the way of companies.
No bid: procurement bans for competition breaches
Regulators’ willingness to take a more flexible approach to enforcement does not mean they will shy away from taking a hard stance where needed.
Outside of fines and in line with a sharp focus on reducing public expenditure, some authorities are imposing public procurement bans.
July 2025 saw the Spanish CNMC deliver a pivotal decision, for the first time directly barring an energy company from participating in public contracts in punishment for abusive self-preferencing. Our article on competition enforcement in Spain in 2025 draws some preliminary conclusions on the scope and duration of bans from the CNMC’s initial debarment cases.
In the UK, legislative changes in force since February 2025 introduced additional grounds for both mandatory and discretionary exclusion from public tender processes. Under the Procurement Act 2023, suppliers who have been found to be involved in unlawful anticompetitive activity, whether in the UK or elsewhere, risk being placed on a new public debarment list for up to five years.
