The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has issued updates on its decisions in two parallel investigations into suspected anti-competitive behaviour in relation to freelance labour in the production and broadcasting of sports content (where it issued an infringement decision) and freelance and employed labour in the production, creation and / or broadcasting of television content, excluding sport, respectively.

Against a backdrop of increasing scrutiny by the CMA of the labour market (see our earlier insight into the CMA’s 2024 Report on competition and market power in UK labour markets) the CMA has fined five sports production and broadcasting companies a total of £4.2 million for colluding on rates of pay for freelancers.

The nature of the production and broadcasting industry is  that recommended minimum hourly and daily rates for freelancers are published by industry associations such as and he Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU). However, the CMA has been clear that this is not an invitation to discuss or fix freelance rates between individual competitors. Fixing the rates or other benefits offered to freelancers / employees is anticompetitive in the UK, as rates need to either be independently negotiated or set through collective bargaining.

In the sports production and broadcasting investigation, the CMA found that sensitive information (fees – such as day rates and pay rises) for specific freelance production roles (like camera operators or sound technicians) were being shared between competing undertakings. In many cases this information sharing was explicitly intended to coordinate freelancer pay under the guise of benchmarking the rates payable. The CMA concluded these were ‘by object’ infringements of competition, meaning it was not necessary to analyse the effects of the behaviour on the market. Interestingly, the infringements date back to 2016, suggesting that the fee fixing was a long-standing practice rather than a practice which sprung up as a result of the challenges faced by the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The relatively low fines in this case reflect the cooperation by each of the five undertakings under the CMA’s leniency programme, ranging from 100% reduction to Sky as the whistleblower, to 15% reduction for cooperating with the investigation, and all parties receiving a 20% discount for agreeing to settle with the CMA and accepting they had infringed UK competition law through bilateral discussion in a total of 15 specific instances between 2014 and 2021.

In closing the non-sports investigation without reaching any conclusions, the CMA cited the lacking proportionality of using its resources to continue with this competition law investigation considering the deterrent effects resulting from the penalties imposed during the sports investigation.

These investigations are part of a larger international pattern putting the labour market into the spotlight as to possible competition law breaches, having seen guidance published by the European Commission in 2024, as well as in EU member states, such as the Portuguese competition authority in 2021 and no-poach cases in the US.

The CMA has also indicated that it will publish further guidance on the interaction between competition law and employment. It will therefore be important for companies to review their internal competition compliance programmes, ensuring compliance with the following best practices:

• Avoid entering into agreements or arrangements with competitors with regards to recruitment. This includes no-poach / no-hire agreements.
• Do not exchange commercially sensitive information with competitors (including remuneration).
• Do not agree to fix levels of remuneration or other employment benefits with competitors (outside of the context of legitimate collective bargaining).
• Ensure employees are provided with up-to-date competition compliance training regarding what they can and can’t discuss with competitors.

By Alix Kamerling, Tiffany McConaghy and Jane Hannon

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