She insists the CMA has not been a brake on economic growth, but admits “where we do need to go further is to make sure that perceptions of the regime haven’t created a chilling effect, haven’t had a detrimental impact on business and investor confidence.”.
A former regulator said: “There’s going to be awful aggro from the business community if the CMA blocks deals now because they are going to think the government has given a signal to allow them.
That culminated in the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, last week issuing new guidance for the CMA, demanding it focus more on economic growth and not overreach into global deals.
Then days later, the government defenestrated the CMA’s chair, Marcus Bokkerink, replacing him with the former head of Amazon in the UK, Doug Gurr.
Britain’s chief trustbuster is sitting in a meeting room at the CMA’s head office after a whirlwind morning of broadcast interviews about its latest intervention, this time in the market for baby milk formula.
