Report shows two-thirds of businesses have never heard of the UK competition watchdog
Two thirds of businesses are unaware of what the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) does while 40% have never heard of it according to a report by heavyweight policy analysts.
The chairman and the chief executive of the CMA should, according to Tyrie, engage much more vigorously than at present with Parliament, the media and the wider public.
On the publication of the report by the Policy Institute and think tank, Centre for Policy Studies, former CMA chair, Andrew Tyrie, said, “The fact that so many businesses either haven’t heard of the CMA, or don’t understand what it does, is a very concerning state of affairs and cannot be allowed to persist. It urgently needs a stronger public voice, as without it, the CMA’s ability to deter anti-competitive behaviour will be sharply reduced. Again, it is the consumer – millions of us – who lose out.
In the report, Tyrie, proposes reforms of the competition watchdog, which, he said, can be taken forward without further legislation. They include greater openness to consumer complaints, through a simple online form to alert the CMA to swindles.
Tyrie claimed that decisions on which cases to investigate have been delegated to a few CMA senior executives, rather than taken directly by its board, as originally envisaged in legislation. And he called for an end to the CMA’s record of talking on cases with “little strategic justification or connection to the lives of ordinary consumers – must end. Better, and better explained, decisions can and should result.”
Tyrie waned that competition and consumer protection policy is currently struggling to keep pace with the growing power of online platforms, and the scope for the growth in consumer detriment in much of the economy that they make possible.
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