The U.K.’s top antitrust watchdog stepped down this week after a nine year tenure that saw him elevated by Brexit to be one of the world’s most powerful regulators but he leaves with unfinished business reining in the excesses of Silicon Valley.
Andrea Coscelli, an academic and economist who headed up the Competition and Markets Authority since 2013, ended his term after helping to steer the agency out of the European Commission’s shadow, armed with new powers to oversee global deals and an incentive to pick battles with Big Tech.
Coscelli’s biggest decisions include stopping the proposed 2019 merger of J Sainsbury Plc and Asda into what would have been the U.K.’s biggest grocer, to being the first watchdog to try and force a tech company to unwind a completed deal when Meta Platforms Inc. bought GIF-maker Giphy.
