Growth mandate won’t harm consumers, says competition watchdog
The boss of the UK’s competition watchdog has insisted there is no additional risk of consumer harm from the government’s bid to put regulators on a growth footing, despite her former chair being ousted for not buying into the push.
Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) boss Sarah Cardell said she saw “no tension” between her organisation diligently policing fair markets while also meeting the government’s challenge for regulators to promote economic growth, and felt the two worked hand in hand.
“If we think about our statutory mandate at the CMA, it’s about promoting competition and protecting consumers, and both of those things are foundational to driving economic growth,” she told MPs at the Business and Trade Committee.
“We know that open, dynamic, competitive markets will deliver greater levels of investment, innovation [and] should deliver greater productivity.”
Cardell made her comments amid a period of major upheaval at the UK’s largest regulators, as they respond to the Labour government’s desire for watchdog bosses to remove unnecessary hurdles to economic growth.
Regulating for growth?
On Christmas Eve, Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and business secretary Jonathan Reynolds wrote to the chief executives of more than 10 regulators – including the CMA – demanding they propose ways to aid his administration’s growth mission.
But the UK’s antitrust regulator has found itself especially in the government’s crosshairs, and has been singled out as one of watchdogs with the most work to do to meet government demands.
Shortly after Starmer laid down the gauntlet to regulators, he and Reeves unceremoniously ousted CMA chair, Marcus Bokkerink, replacing him with former Amazon UK chief executive, Doug Gurr.
And in February, ministers published a strategic steer for the regulator demanding its approach “clearly and unambiguously reflect the need to enhance the attractiveness of the UK as a destination for international investment”. The document was accompanied by an uncompromising demand from Reynolds for the CMA to be “more agile“.
Cardell’s organisation has come under fire from firms for being too interventionist in UK merger and acquisition activity over recent years. In a particularly withering salvo, the boss of Activision slammed the body’s interventionist tendencies as “irrational”, after it blocked Microsoft’s $75bn megadeal for the gaming firm in 2023.
But the watchdog’s efforts to rethink its approach have also sparked fears the UK may suffer a rise of anticompetitive behaviour.
Asked by Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard whether dominant players may have “more leeway to run competitors off the road [stifling] free competition”, Cardell said: “We have been very clear… that protecting consumers [is] still the CMA’s priority.
“We should do that with a growth-focused lens, but that doesn’t mean… allowing anti-competitive mergers, it doesn’t mean stepping back from competition enforcement, it doesn’t mean stepping away from our new functions to deliver effective competition in digital markets, and I think the clear message [from us] reflects that.”