The prediction is framed over “the next several years” starting from late 2023, while as of November 2025 barely ~2 years have passed and the key legal changes (the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act) only began to take effect in 2024. That is too short to reliably observe a structural trend in global tech-location decisions.

Available evidence focuses on regulatory design and concerns rather than on documented behaviour of firms avoiding the UK. Government reforms explicitly added a UK‑nexus criterion and safe‑harbour thresholds to ensure only mergers with a meaningful UK link are caught and to reduce burdens on businesses, suggesting policymakers are trying to limit over‑reach rather than entrench it. (gov.uk) The CMA continues to run a voluntary merger regime where most deals are never reviewed at all, which further complicates attributing any changes in office‑location decisions to merger control. (gov.uk)

Commentary in policy debates and think‑tank pieces speculates that harsh merger control could deter entrepreneurs from the UK, but other experts argue that this is overstated because the CMA can already intervene in foreign‑to‑foreign mergers with limited UK sales, as shown by the Meta/Giphy case, meaning simply avoiding a UK office would not reliably avoid scrutiny. (globalcompetitionreview.com) Meanwhile, CMA leadership publicly emphasises a more pro‑growth, proportionate approach and the need to avoid a “chilling effect” on investment, indicating political pressure to reduce the very deterrent Sacks is predicting. (theguardian.com)

Crucially, there is no systematic data or clear series of public examples showing that an increasing number of tech firms have chosen not to establish a UK nexus specifically to avoid future CMA review. Without that behavioural evidence and with the time horizon still incomplete, the prediction cannot yet be judged as clearly right or wrong, so it remains inconclusive (too early to tell).