UK Digital Regulation: perspectives from the leaders of the CMA, FCA, ICO and Ofcom

Digital panel discussion with Andrea Coscelli, Chief Executive, CMA; Melanie Dawes, Chief Executive, Ofcom; Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner, ICO; Nikhil Rathi, Chief Executive, FCA, chaired by former Business Secretary and European Commissioner Lord Mandelson to discuss digital regulation.

Highlights from the discussion:

• The Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) will be used by regulators as an avenue to better understand one another’s views on digital challenges in order to ensure a more joined-up and cohesive approach, with Andrea Coscelli explaining that businesses will be reassured to see digital regulators collaborating closely.
   
• The digital environment is moving at a faster rate than ever before and is reaching into nearly all areas of society. In order to effectively respond to this, Elizabeth Denham emphasised that regulators must find new and innovative ways to interact with one another.
   
• Elizabeth Denham explained that the government’s forthcoming Online Safety Bill will require platforms to act more transparently with regard to how they set out their approaches to governing harmful content, with Dame Melanie Dawes calling on platforms to take more responsibility for the content they allow to be posted on their services.
   
• Nikhil Rathi noted the importance of financial regulation remaining digitally ‘savvy’, with the problem of online scams growing at an unprecedented pace during the covid-19 pandemic and the expansion of digital platforms into financial services, while acknowledging the potential utility of algorithms and AI-driven processes in evaluating potential market abuses and risk.
   
• Elizabeth Denham revealed that she expects more regulators, such as the ASA, to join the DRCF in due course.