Fingleton steps down as OFT chief executive
THE head of the Office of Fair Trading – the country’s main competition and consumer protection watchdog – is to step down later this year, the OFT said yesterday.
OFT chief executive John Fingleton said he had not yet decided on his next career move and he did not set a specific date for his departure.
Fingleton has headed up the regulator since 2005, when he joined from the Irish Competition Authority where he had been full-time chairperson since 2000, overseeing the implementation of the country’s Competition Act in 2002.
“As the government moves closer to a decision on the future structure of the regime, this is a good time for someone new to take the helm at the OFT and steer the competition and consumer regime into the future,” he said yesterday, adding that he had not yet decided on his next position.
Fingleton’s predecessor at the OFT was Sir John Vickers – now famous in City circles for heading up the Independent Commission on Banking and publishing its report into banking reform.
In his official resignation letter to business secretary Vince Cable, Fingleton praised Vickers’ leadership of the regulator, and said he was proud of how the body “use[s] our tools flexibly and innovatively to improve economic outcomes by changing the behaviour of business, consumers and government”.
Fingleton said that he had wanted to lead the OFT through “considerable uncertainty” over its future, but that he now believed planned reforms to the body were stable enough for him to hand over the reins.