For Big Tech, There’s a New Sheriff on the Beat

After the U.K. split from the bloc at the end of last year, meanwhile, the CMA has begun exerting its powers aggressively in a series of high-profile cases. It has targeted Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc., pursuing competition cases it generally didn’t when Britain was an EU member.

The CMA’s chief executive, Andrea Coscelli, said that his agency wants to take a leading role in shaping the behavior of powerful tech firms around the world. “In a way we’re coming out of the shadows of the European Commission,” he said in an interview, referring to the EU’s top antitrust authority.

Mr. Coscelli said he is now free to move independently, speeding up investigations, and that the agency can act within weeks of getting a complaint.

“Before we had to be part of a discussion,” Mr. Coscelli said. “It wasn’t our choice” what complaints to pursue.

The CMA’s case work has increased by 30% to 50% since Brexit, Mr. Coscelli said. To cope with that influx, he is close to nearly doubling the agency’s workforce to 1,000. That means competing for talent with large technology companies themselves, which have hundreds of well-paying vacancies in their legal and policy teams globally.

Thomas Vinje, chairman of antitrust practice at Clifford Chance LLP in Brussels, said that the CMA was “moving faster than most antitrust authorities seem able to do…If I’m sitting in the headquarters of one of the big four technology companies, I definitely have one eye on the CMA.”

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said she welcomed the competition over regulation. “I find it really natural that they now assert themselves,” she said in a recent interview. “They must show that they fully sit in the chair, so to speak.”

Mr. Coscelli, a 52-year-old dual citizen of Italy and the U.K., said his top priorities include greater scrutiny of acquisitions that could bolster a tech giant’s market position. He also intends to use his agency to push large tech firms to make their data and systems more accessible to smaller rivals.

The agency is investigating whether Apple’s App Store sets out unfair terms for app developers and whether Facebook is gaining illegal advantages for its own services, like dating and classified ads, from data it gathers from Facebook’s advertisers. Apple said it would work with the CMA, and defended the requirements it places on app developers, saying they are applied “fairly and equally.” Facebook said it operates in a competitive environment and would “continue to cooperate fully with the investigations to demonstrate that they are without merit.”

The CMA has also taken on Google over its plan for the company’s Chrome browser to stop using an ad-targeting technology called third-party cookies. Google had pledged to get rid of such cookies after pressure from privacy advocates and regulators, but digital advertising companies complained the shift would give Google an advantage in online ads.

The case against Google, launched in January, has already led to global changes. Google last month proposed to settle the CMA’s case by promising its ad tools wouldn’t access Chrome users’ browsing data, and that it would give the CMA at least 60 days notice before removing cookies to review its plan, and potentially impose changes. Google said it would honor those commitments globally.

Mr. Coscelli said his agency took a novel approach, pushing Google to agree to changes ahead of any potential punitive measures, like a fine. Google welcomed that as a way in which it could address competition concerns proactively, according to Oliver Bethell, Google’s director of legal affairs in Europe. “We appreciate any opportunity for fact-based discussions designed to find pragmatic solutions,” he said.

Other agencies have looked into the third-party cookie issue, including Texas and nine other U.S. states, which raised it in a December lawsuit, and the EU, which included the issue in a broader investigation of Google’s ad-tech business last month.

Google said in late June that it would delay the removal of third-party cookies until late 2023, nearly two years later than its original target, citing the need to get publishers, advertisers and regulators comfortable with its proposed replacements.

Born in Parma, Italy, Mr. Coscelli worked for a consulting firm in London before joining the U.K.’s main communication regulator, Ofcom, and then the CMA in 2013. In 2017 he was appointed as the agency’s head by the British government’s business minister.

The CMA’s new assertiveness comes as Brussels continues a number of regulatory probes against big tech firms and has teed up legislation to curb their influence. The U.S., too, has intensified scrutiny, while Chinese officials have more recently joined the fray.

As it takes on a more global role, the British government is proposing new powers for the CMA, including the ability to push companies to make changes before wrapping up an investigation. It will also be able to levy fines on companies without going through the courts, something the EU can also do. Mr. Coscelli said that had been a challenge for American antitrust regulators. Last month, a federal court dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust complaint against Facebook.

“The [U.S.] courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court, have made their job really difficult,” Mr. Coscelli said.

—Daniel Michaels and Sam Schechner contributed to this article.

Write to Parmy Olson at [email protected]