The resignation of the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Marcus Bokkerink, confirmed by government ministers on Tuesday evening, was greeted with optimism by business leaders – though an outspoken minority criticised the government for being too interventionist. Appointed as chairman of the CMA in September 2022, Bokkerink’s resignation, just over two years into the job – CMA chairs can serve for up to five years – comes as the government charges full steam ahead with its pro-growth agenda.
In a statement announcing the appointment of former Amazon executive and Natural History Museum boss Doug Gurr as the new interim chair of the CMA, business secretary Jeremy Reynolds noted that it came following a meeting between ‘leading regulators’ and the business secretary and chancellor, ‘who were asked to tear down barriers hindering business.’
Competition experts have voiced concerns about the government’s approach. “The CMA’s draft annual plan actually mentions growth over 100 times,” Gerardin Partners’ competition partner, Tom Smith, tells Tech Monitor. “It’s difficult to say they haven’t got the growth message.”
The appointment of a former Amazon executive to head up the UK’s main competition regulator will also make a poor impression among those who accuse Whitehall of already being in the pockets of big tech, says Pete Kenyon, head of the tech team at law firm Cripps. “It’s tempting to see the appointment of Doug Gurr as evidence that this is the case,” he adds.
The departure of Bokkerink comes just weeks after the UK’s new digital markets competition regime took effect on 1 January, in the first part of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMMC). Earlier this month the government also published its ‘AI Opportunities Action Plan’, a strategy the government hopes will transform the UK into an “AI maker, and not just an AI taker.”
Aysem Diker Vanberg, senior lecturer in law at Goldsmiths, University of London, notes that these two ambitions are difficult to reconcile. “With the new powers that the CMA has acquired via the DMMC,” says Vanberg, “it is likely to conduct more investigations in the field of cloud computing, which will also impact the AI markets. However, it’s clear that this may be at odds with the Labour government’s industry-oriented approach.”
The CMA’s failure to successfully investigate AI partnerships between large tech companies and AI foundation model (FM) firms under the UK’s merger control rules has cast doubt on its ability to monitor the sector effectively.
In November, the CMA announced in its latest decision that an AI partnership between Alphabet and Anthropic did not qualify for investigation under the UK’s merger control rules because Alphabet had not acquired a sufficient degree of control. An earlier decision about Microsoft’s relationship with Mistral AI had a similar outcome, while a ruling in September found that the Amazon/Anthropic deal did not, in fact, qualify as a ‘partnership.’ The CMA is continuing to gather evidence in the Microsoft/Open AI partnership.
Running in parallel with these investigations into AI partnerships is the regulator’s scrutiny of the cloud computing sector, dominated by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, after concerns were raised by Ofcom about potentially anti-competitive practices. As the CMA reassesses its remit in digital markets, industry insiders are keen for the regulator to continue its cloud investigation.
“We urge the regulator to stay the course and take decisive action to create a fairer, more competitive cloud market that benefits businesses, consumers, and the wider digital economy,” said senior adviser to the Open Cloud Coalition, Nicky Stewart.
While not in charge of day-to-day investigations, the chair of the CMA plays a pivotal role in setting strategy and governance at the CMA.
“The role of CMA Chair is a non-executive position,” says Rona Bar-Isaac, head of competition at law firm Addleshaw Goddard. “[While] a change of personnel at this level is not going to have a direct impact on live cases (such as the market investigation into public cloud infrastructure), it certainly sends a message to UK regulators that the current government is serious about its economic strategy.”
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