Assistant Director, Mergers

Are you a competition lawyer, project delivery professional, or economist, with a proven track record in leading work and cases related to merger control?

Do you want to use your skills and expertise to make a real and positive impact on the UK economy and society?

Join the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and play a key role ensuring mergers bring benefits to the economy and help businesses and markets grow.

About the CMA

We help people, businesses, and the UK economy by promoting competitive markets and tackling unfair behaviour. Our work is wide ranging, ambitious and often new and challenging.

The CMA’s merger control regime helps to ensure that mergers do not substantially lessen competition and lead to worse market outcomes for UK consumers, for example, through higher prices, lower quality and reduced choice.

The CMA’s role in reviewing mergers has grown significantly following the UK’s exit from the EU, and the CMA is now responsible for scrutinising complex global mergers alongside other international competition authorities.

The role

You will support the Mergers Directors in leading several merger control cases and will be responsible for reviewing mergers and setting the direction and strategy for merger cases, ensuring that decisions are robust and delivered in a timely and efficient way.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Overseeing the work of multi-disciplinary case teams that include lawyers, economists and business and financial advisers
• Promoting the robustness of the merger control process
• Identifying and proactively managing legal and other risks
• Supporting Mergers Directors in leading corporate and policy projects
• Advising case teams on how to assess and analyse legal, economic and other evidence 
• Supporting colleagues to develop their careers and fostering talent and conducting performance reviews

In addition to casework, as part of the Mergers management team, you will be involved in shaping the CMA’s mergers policy and practice. You will help to address the challenges raised by novel substantive and procedural issues in UK merger control, including those raised by mergers in digital markets and multi-jurisdictional cases.

What you will need

A proven track record of undertaking and leading work and cases related to merger control, as a competition lawyer, project delivery professional, or economist, is essential.

You will need significant experience of leading and developing staff and motivating professional teams in the delivery of successful projects (or work streams within projects).

You will also need significant experience of making decisions, using sound analysis and judgement and managing risks.

What we can offer you

The CMA is a hugely diverse, rewarding and stimulating place to work – an opportunity to work for the public good and to stretch and develop yourself in doing so while also having considerable flexibility when it comes to how and when you work. We offer generous benefits, including an excellent pension scheme with an average employer contribution of 27%, at least 25 days leave (increasing to 30 over five years), and generous maternity/paternity leave provision. You can also take advantage of interest-free season ticket loans, a cycle to work scheme.

To find out more about this opportunity and about working for the CMA, please click on the APPLY button.

Closing date for applications: 20th February 2024.

Like many other organisations, we operate a hybrid working model with a mix of office and home working. We believe this supports us to deliver our best work while allowing the flexibility to maintain balanced and healthy lives.

The CMA are an accredited Disability Confident Employer, and we are an equal opportunities employer, welcoming suitably qualified applicants from all backgrounds. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles.