Amelia Fletcher was appointed by Philip Hammond to undertake the Furman Review of competition in the digital economy. She joined Professors Diane Coyle, Derek McAuley and Philip Marsden, together with Professor Jason Furman, former economic adviser to Barack Obama.  While this work is focused on digital issues, there is a strong behavioural slant to the work, since many of the competition issues in fact arise due to consumer behavioural biases of one sort or another. You can read more about the review on the Government's Website.

The inaugural meeting of this new independent expert panel looking took place in Downing Street on 19 September 2018. Over the course of the review, the panel met with a wide range of academics, businesses and representative groups. The panel ran until early 2019 and its work culminated in a final report of recommendations for the government which was published by HM Treasury on 13 March 2019. 

The review found that tech giants do not face enough competition; a new markets unit is needed to set and enforce rules; existing rules need updating to tackle mergers and improve enforcement; and action is needed to increase choice and innovation for consumers.

Following on from this report, and further work by the CMA, it has been announced (November 2020) that the UK is to create a new tech regulator to try to hold huge online platforms such as Google, Facebook and Amazon in check against their smaller rivals.  According to an article in the Financial Times, The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said a ‘Digital Markets Unit’ would be launched in April 2021 inside the UK’s existing competition watchdog - the Competition and Markets Authority.