Ministers force out chair of UK’s competition regulator

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Ministers have forced out the chair of the UK Competition and Markets Authority, as the government seeks to dial back regulation as part of Labour’s growth agenda.

The government will announce the departure of Marcus Bokkerink as chair of the regulator on Tuesday evening after an intervention by business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, according to people familiar with the matter.

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Bokkerink, a former managing director at Boston Consulting Group, was appointed in 2022. CMA chairs can serve up to a five-year term.

The Department of Business and Trade made clear to Bokkerink on Monday evening that it felt the regulator was not sufficiently focused on growth, according to one government figure.

The government has appointed Doug Gurr as new interim chair of the CMA. Gurr, a former country manager of Amazon UK, is currently director of the Natural History Museum in London.

Bokkerink could not be immediately reached for comment. The CMA and business department did not immediately comment.

The competition regulator has been the focus of complaints to Labour ministers from business leaders, frustrated by what they see as an excessively interventionist approach to deals.

“We know that [the CMA’s] performance has not been good enough. There is a lot of frustration about this across the board from business,” said one government figure. “We are hearing unhappiness from everyone.”

The CMA came under intense criticism from Microsoft in 2023 for its handling of the tech giant’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The agency ultimately approved the deal between the two US-based businesses after having initially sought to block it.

In October last year, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also took aim at the body in a speech to business leaders, telling them he would “make sure that every regulator in this country, especially our economic and competition regulators, takes growth as seriously as this room does”.

Eleven members of the 33-member CMA merger panel, an independent group of experts that decides whether any deal that might threaten competition can proceed, are due to step down later this year. The business department is in charge of appointing their replacements.  

One government figure said it was reasonable to assume that more of those incoming panel members would have a business background.