UK competition watchdog to name Clive Bannister as new chair- FT

(Reuters) -Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is expected to name Clive Bannister as its new chair to replace Andrew Tyrie, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the process.

The new appointment was expected to be announced next week, after Tyrie said he would step down in September 2020 and Jonathan Scott was appointed the interim chair.

The competition watchdog has also opted to appoint Sarah Cardell, its general counsel, as interim chief executive officer after Andrea Coscelli earlier this year announced his departure in July, the report said.

The government is not expected to start the official search for a permanent CEO until after the summer, the FT said.

Although Bannister is the preferred candidate, one government official cautioned that the final decision had not yet been made by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, the newspaper said.

“We are currently in the process of recruiting a new CMA CEO and we will announce next steps in due course,” a spokesperson for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) told Reuters, after a query to CMA was redirected to BEIS.

(Reporting by Jahnavi Nidumolu and Juby Babu in Bengaluru, Editing by Franklin Paul, Marguerita Choy and Bernard Orr)