Regulatory diversity: the case for business and lobbyist experience

When an activist joins a regulator, all is perfect – but when a former lobbyist does, that is somehow a very bad thing? A regulator’s role is not to be a one-sided attack/lap dog.

Instead, they should be objective and impartial. They should weigh the pros and cons, and never be focussed only on one side of the story. They should challenge assumptions – including their own.

I have seen complainants join the regulators in charge of similar cases as their own – and I like to think that they have been able to bring their expertise to a regulator without forgetting to be impartial. Why should a former lobbyist be any different?

If anything, the former lobbyists I have seen move into public service have often ended up being equally if not more effective than people with a more academic or purely legal background, because they are often more at ease with explaining complex topics in simple terms.

The same applies to anyone with business experience. A range of experiences of different members allows a regulator to combine both idealism and realism, theory and practice, ideology and pragmatism. The hiring of former lobbyists and business folk should then help regulators be more effective. Their decisions might be more nuanced, more balanced and less likely to be challenged.

In my view, many of the issues we face today in enforcement of GDPR and ePrivacy rules stem precisely from a general lack of people with “tech business” backgrounds within regulators, leading to regulatory positions that are ever more often absolutist and detached from technical reality.

So we should be welcoming the arrival of a former lobbyist – not shunning it.

And if a true conflict of interest does arise, you expect that person to be able to assess properly the course of action to take in order to manage that in accordance with internal rules. Just like the activist surely does.

[Note that I have often seen challenges to the impartiality of activists turned regulators. I’m no fan of this if there is only a gratuitous presumption of partiality. But I suppose something similar will happen on occasion against any person in a regulatory capacity.]

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