The UK’s antitrust regulator the Competition and Markets Authority has appointed three senior legal directors, including hires from Linklaters and the European Commission.

The three senior appointments include Richard Romney, who becomes senior legal director for the CMA’s mergers, markets and regulatory appeals team on a permanent basis having served on an interim basis since 2023. Lourenço Ventura returns to the CMA from the European Commission as senior legal director for competition enforcement, while Emma Cochrane joins from Linklaters as senior legal director for consumer enforcement.

Chris Prevett, general counsel of the CMA, said: “Sound, strategic legal risk management, and reaching robust legal decisions, underpins every aspect of the CMA’s work on behalf of UK consumers and businesses. With the CMA’s responsibilities set to grow following the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, I am really pleased to be making three appointments at this senior level.”

Romney has been with the CMA since 2019 when he joined as director of mergers before being promoted to senior legal director in January 2023 on an interim basis. Prior to joining the CMA, he was a senior associate at Freshfields, where he spent just over a decade.

Ventura comes back to the CMA after two years at the European Commission, working in its antitrust unit overseeing pharma and health services. He previously held a number of legal positions at the CMA and its predecessor organisation, the Office for Fair Trading. Prior to his work in public service, he worked in private practice at Iberian firm Garrigues in Portugal covering competition and EU law, among other areas, having started his career at CMS Rui Pena & Arnaut.

Cochrane, meantime, arrives after more than a decade at Magic Circle firm Linklaters as a competition lawyer, becoming a counsel in 2021. Prior to that she spent just over four years at Simmons & Simmons, where she started her legal career.

Prevett added: “Each of these senior appointments brings substantial expertise, and will add further strength and depth to the senior leadership team and high calibre lawyers and policy professionals comprising the CMA’s legal service.”

Last September, the CMA lost former Freshfields lawyer Anthony Ojukwu to competition law boutique Geradin Partners, the fourth former senior CMA lawyer to join the firm.