RegulationDec 14 2018

Regulators shake up decision committees

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Regulators shake up decision committees

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) have made several appointments to three of their decision-making committees.

The regulators appointed five members to the FCA’s Competition Decisions Committee (CDC) and the PSR’s Competition Decisions Committee and Enforcement Decisions Committee (EDC).

The committees are responsible for making competition law and regulatory decisions when a settlement cannot be reached elsewhere.

Lesley Ainsworth, Simon Polito, David Thomas and Tim Tutton were appointed to all three committees, while Alasdair Smith was appointed a panel member of the FCA’s CDC.

Ms Ainsworth has experience as a competition lawyer and partner at Hogan Lovells and  is a current panel member of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), a role she has held since July 2013.

Mr Polito worked at Hogan Lovells for more than 35 years to then join the Competition Commission as deputy chairman in 2011.

Mr Polito also held the position of inquiry chairman at the CMA for four years, chairing phase 2 merger inquiries, a payday lending market investigation and four case decision groups.

Mr Thomas is currently a specialist panel member at the CMA and a member of the Consumer Panel at the Civil Aviation Authority.

Mr Tutton is currently a panel member of the CMA, which conducted a market investigation of the payday lending industry and is currently on the panel investigating the market in investment consultants.

Mr Smith is currently a member of the Determinations Panel at The Pensions Regulator and commissioner at the Scottish Fiscal Commission.

He also acted as deputy chairman at the Competition Commission and inquiry chairman at the CMA between 2012 and 2017, where he chaired nine merger inquiries and the market investigations in private motor insurance and retail banking.

Charles Randell, chairman of the FCA and PSR, said: "The candidates all have considerable competition and regulatory experience in a variety of sectors, and will enable these decision-making committees of the FCA and PSR to maintain high standards in their important work."

rachel.addison@ft.com