When Doug Gurr was named chair of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority last month – having already led the watchdog on an interim basis since January last year – one major case in his docket was a high-stakes decision on how to regulate two major cloud service providers. One of these was the web services arm of his former employer, Amazon.
“During the pre-appointment hearing, we discussed perceptions arising from my previous role at Amazon,” Gurr subsequently said in a letter sent to the chair of the Business and Trade Committee in early March. As a result, Gurr continued, he would be recusing himself from the case, which also involved Amazon’s competitor Microsoft, even as he claimed that, “it is clear that no actual conflict of interest is capable of arising”.
But Gurr’s “recusal addresses narrow conflicts, not broader influence”, Tommaso Valletti, an economics professor at Imperial College Business School, told openDemocracy. “The real concern is the shaping of priorities, framing, and appetite for intervention. That kind of influence persists even when formal rules are followed.”
