Andrew Tyrie put ordinary consumers at the heart of the future of the UK's competition regulator as he set out his pitch to government for greater powers to compel businesses to tackle the public "erosion of trust" in business and markets.
Speaking at an event in London, Lord Tyrie said the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) should have a statutory duty to ensure the interests of consumers are “paramount”, and to speed up its response to complaints.
The CMA’s chair, who took up the role last year, added there was a growing sense among the public that consumers, particularly vulnerable ones, were being “poorly served by those charged with making the economy efficient and competitive”.
The regulator wants the power to compel businesses to stop practices it believes to be illegal without having to go to court to enforce competition law.
It also wants the ability to impose remedies without having first to prove competition has been damaged by businesses, and to make such remedies at an earlier stage.
It is seeking the power to disqualify company directors for “the most serious breaches of consumer law”, as it can with competition infringements.
The CMA’s proposals “have the capacity to mark a decisive shift in favour of the consumer. . .and against those business big or small, who trade unfairly or exploit vulnerability”, Lord Tyrie added.
They would also make the CMA “more aware and responsive to public concerns about markets, better equipped to engage with business. and to speak up against the tendency of [big business] to ally with vested interests”.
He called the public’s “erosion of trust” in markets the “biggest job for all of us in the public policy space”. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2019
