IEA Director of Public Policy and Communications Matthew Lesh has written in CapX on the threat posed by the proposed Digital Markets Unit to competition and innovation in the UK tech sector.

Matthew wrote:

“The DMU is built on an extraordinarily arrogant premise – that a regulator sitting in the CMA’s office in Canary Wharf can not only comprehend complex and fast-moving global digital markets, but also predict how they will evolve under various scenarios and intervene to deliver better outcomes.

“They will be able to do all this with extremely limited oversight from Parliament or, for that matter, the judiciary. As Sir Jonathan Jones, the government’s former top lawyer, and Verity Egerton-Doyle recently wrote: ‘The DMU will have power to decide who it is going to regulate, set the rules that apply to them, and then enforce those rules. This makes the DMU the effective legislator, investigator and executioner.’

“The DMU poses a fundamental threat to innovation and British entrepreneurialism – the Government should look very closely at its powers and accountability before rushing legislation through Parliament.”

Read the full article here.