When Doug Gurr quit Amazon in 2020, where he had been UK chief since 2016, it appeared he was looking forward to a life with a little less stress. After a stellar career in retail, the softly spoken former university lecturer and civil servant took a role among the bones and stones at the Natural History Museum, and later a part-time chair role at the Alan Turing Institute, nestled inside the British Library.
But there is clearly still grrr in the Gurr, with the 60-year-old today announced as the new interim chairman of the Competition & Markets Authority. (NB the CMA’s CEO Sarah Cardell was initially appointed on an interim basis).
The appointment is an overtly political one. The CMA “plays a vital role in supporting consumers” began the statement of business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds. But more importantly to the government, he continued, “we want to see regulators including the CMA supercharging the economy with pro-business decisions”.
A growth-focused CMA
Chancellor Rachel Reeves last week met with regulators to hear their ideas on how to stimulate growth. The submission from incumbent CMA chair Marcus Bokkerink was said to be “underwhelming”, the BBC reported, as Reeves had been hoping to hear a solid plan on how the authority was going to slash red tape. She didn’t get one. So the government gave Bokkerink the boot. Or rather “accepted the resignation”.
It’s a new departure for the CMA for sure. Reeves and the government want regulators to “tear down the barriers hindering business and refocus their efforts on promoting growth”.
And Gurr is a good choice to fulfil that aim. He knows first-hand the pain of being stymied by the regulator. He was at the helm of Amazon when the CMA flip-flopped its way through a 15-month investigation into its 16% stake in Deliveroo.
His tech background probably makes him sympathetic to the pain endured when the authority put the brakes on the long-planned merger between Vodafone and Three (eventually greenlit by the CMA in December) and that of Microsoft, Meta and Adobe, whose business plans the CMA has hampered in recent years.
And unlike his relatively short-lived predecessor Bokkerink, who came from a consultancy background, Gurr’s career has been, for the most part, commercially driven. He’s been CEO of online wholesaler Blueheath – which underwent a reverse takeover by Booker; was executive development director at Asda; and at Amazon he led the business in China and then the UK.
Business vs regulator
Gurr will no doubt have influence in selecting – with the business department – replacements for the 11 of the 33-member CMA merger panel who are due to step down later this year. As Tom Smith, partner at law firm Geradin Partners and former CMA legal director, told The FT: “It is tempting to say that now would be a good time to file a merger at the CMA.”
But what now for the CMA’s investigation into the market dominance of Google in search, or its cloud market investigation (a space where Amazon – via AWS – is runaway market leader)?
In the perennial battle of business versus regulator, Gurr’s colours are clear. And the reveal of his new role is well timed, with Reeves currently on a charm offensive at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, stressing to the high-powered audience that “the time to invest in Britain is now”.
Of course, the CMA’s overarching reason for being is to enforce competition law, protect consumers and stamp out unfair trading practices. Growth shouldn’t be at any cost. Every merger has its losers in the market. And red tape, however infuriating for businesses, often exists for good reason.
Gurr told The Grocer in 2018 that his most used phrase was: “What could possibly go wrong?” Guess we’ll soon see.
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