CMA should be pushed to fight monopoly, not to intimidate

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Perhaps it is a satisfaction with the UK competition organizer to get a good review this week. Margherita Della Valle, CEO of Vodafone, sang her praise after obtaining approval of a 16.5 billion pounds of merger with three UK, saying that the European Union should follow the British approach.

Smalls were not available to the authority of competition and markets. The government was forced to leave Marcus Boescrank as a president because he did not think he was taking growth seriously. Support behind him, Doug Ghor, former head of Amazon, UK, “an organizational environment that encourages the largest possible level of commercial investment.”

It is tempting for governments to recruit the anti -monopoly authorities in their political efforts, rather than focusing on maintaining the competitiveness of the markets. There is a lot about that: China has revived this week’s Google and NVIDIA monopoly investigations to give itself an influence in a conflict with the United States due to the definitions threatened by Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the European Union is painful on whether its harsh approach to combating monopoly has hindered Europe from building companies that could compete with technology giants from the United States and China. In a report last year, Mario Drajhi, the former European Central Bank, suggested that the European Union should stop cautious about monotheism.

Forcing technocrats to follow multiple goals at one time does not work in general. “They are not an occasion to make the preferences faced by politicians. One of the competition lawyer says:“ They must properly do one job. ”The government used to have the final statement in the incorporation operations in the United Kingdom, but it made the organization independent in 2002: If she wants this Powers, you must say that.

But the organizers should not work in a political and judicial vacuum, which imposes their theories from economic harm without facing the consequences of failure. Although it would be a mistake for a desperate government to grow in CMA to change its purpose, the latter should not be fortified from attack or interrogating any of its decisions.

It is fair to criticize how CMA has worked in recent years, especially since the post -Britain exit from the European Union in 2021, when the European Union has no longer to postpone international integration operations. Things reached her head in 2023 when she finally agreed to acquire Microsoft with a value of $ 75 billion from the Activision Snow Storm after 21 months of uncertainty, after initially emerged globally by preventing it.

This different complaints about CMA crystallized. One of them is that it takes a long time to make decisions, and companies are covered in what a lawyer call “MIASMA from uncertainty” by not specifying exactly what worries it. “They are linking you with a contract with a trillion of questions, and you end up as it started,” says CEO.

The second complaint is that it is drifting to the anti -monopoly activity on a global scale, even when the UK market was a small part of international integration. Among the national organizations, they have developed a strict approach to acquisition by American technology companies, including Lina Khan, who is now stepped as head of the US Federal Trade Committee.

The mood and the number of ghosts have changed not coincidence, given how difficult American companies complain behind the scenes around the CMA position. Even a former CMA official says he lost some sense of proportionality and controlled by simply exercising, to become transparent and whistle.

There are structural holes in how CMA works. Anti -monopoly decisions are taken by the panels, with only restricted reasons to attract the court. This contradicts the American regime, as many efforts made by the Federal Investigation Committee for Business restrictions were transferred during the Khan era by the courts. It was also difficult to recruit businessmen to sit with economists on paintings.

The result is a body that has worked slowly and ineffectively and in my mind, the need to calculate the outside world. This is not just the point of view of companies that prefer only to continue the acquisitions and not disturb them, but even the enlightened elements of the CMA itself. Sarah Cardil, the CEO, said that she wants to be more transparent and less opponent.

Although CMA needs change, Gurr has not yet indicated that it intends to transform it from its primary role in promoting competition and consumer care. The government may be keen to push matters more by introducing the goal of encouraging growth and investing in its official jurisdiction.

My advice is, no. It may have a title but it may cause confusion, interfere with CMA reforms and is not useful. Technocrats are pushed in the right direction.

john.gapper@ft.com