The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has appointed the panel to determine the RIIO2 appeals, as well as updating on the timeline for the process.
The panel of three will consider the appeals of all eight transmission and gas networks against Ofgem’s final determinations on their business plans for the 2021-2026 price control.
The CMA has set a deadline of 30 September to deliver its determination, having insisted that the common grounds of appeal are joined across appellants. Unlike the process in the Ofwat appeals over the past year, the provisional determination will not be made public.
A three-strong panel will consider the appeals, led by chair Kirsten Baker, who also headed up the recent unsuccessful appeal by SSE against Ofgem’s approval of a code modification removing residual transmission charges from generators.
Baker is the former finance and commercial director for HM Treasury, having previously been part of the senior team leading the department’s response to the banking crisis. She was appointed a panel inquiry chair and panel member non-executive director of the CMA in September 2018.
The other panel members are Susan Hankey and David Thomas.
Hankey was appointed in October 2017 and is a member of the CMA’s specialist communications and utility panels. She was a partner in law firm CMS Cameron McKenna (now CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang) from 1998 to 2015.
Thomas has also been with the CMA since October 2017 and is a member of its specialist utility panel. In September 2016 he retired as a UK partner in KPMG where he founded and led its global economics & regulation practice. Prior to joining KPMG in 2006, he was director of competition and regulatory finance at Ofcom and from 1984 to 2003 was with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Read Maxine Frerk’s latest column discussing the latest steps in the CMA appeal here.