Whitehall veteran Clive Maxwell has been named as the new chief executive of the Office of Fair Trading.
An OFT board member since 2010, Maxwell worked at the Treasury in a variety of roles from 1992 to 2009.
He takes over from John Fingleton, who announced in February that he was stepping down after seven years in the £135,300-a-year role.
Maxwell will preside over the formation of the new Competition & Markets Authority, which takes over from the Competition Commission and the OFT from 2014.
Announcing the appointment, business secretary Vince Cable said: “Clive is already a highly effective member of the OFT leadership team and has been instrumental in forging strong relations with government and the Competition Commission on the development of the new competition regime.
“His experience and expertise mean he is well qualified to provide strong leadership during the transition to the new Competition & Markets Authority.”
OFT chairman Philip Collins said: “Clive has played a major role in the OFT’s thinking about the regimes for which it is responsible and its future work. He is the right person to lead the organisation through the forthcoming changes.”
Maxwell said: “We will remain focused on making markets work well for consumers while also helping ensure a successful transition to the new competition, consumer and credit regimes.”
Competition lawyer Bruce Kilpatrick of the firm Addleshaw Goddard said Maxwell was “the obvious internal candidate for the post” due to his Whitehall experience and Treasury links. But he warned that “the scope he will have to make an impact in the role will be limited”.
“It’s fair to say the role would not have been attractive to an external candidate, since it is clearly a temporary post pending the OFT’s transition to the proposed CMA,” he said. “The big question is whether Maxwell will head up the CMA when it is established.”
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