Marcus Bokkerink will leave the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) after facing pressure from Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds.
LONDON — The British government has booted out the chair of its antitrust watchdog and replaced him with a former tech exec as it pursues its “growth agenda.”
Marcus Bokkerink will leave the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) after facing pressure from Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds.
He will be replaced on an interim basis by Doug Gurr, who was a long-serving executive at Amazon, leading the company’s China and U.K. operations.
A government official confirmed the news to POLITICO on Tuesday evening.
The Department of Business and Trade had told Bokkerink that the regulator was not taking the government’s growth mission seriously enough.
The Labour government has tasked regulators with finding ways to boost the country’s flagging economy and called in regulator chiefs to meet the chancellor last week.
The CMA put forward ideas to the government, including an AI tool to root out procurement fraud, but left ministers unimpressed.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer also singled out the CMA for criticism in a speech at Britain’s International Investment Summit last October.
Bokkerink’s departure comes at a crucial time for the competition regulator which has just taken on new powers to impose rules on large tech firms. The CMA argues the regime will create a more level playing field in digital markets and increase competition, but the biggest tech firms have long warned it will weaken their appetite for investment in the U.K.
Those tech firms will hope to find an ally in Gurr, who is currently director of London’s Natural History Museum and chair of the Alan Turing Institute.
The CMA has been contacted for comment.
