Recommendation 137

Witnesses suggested that consumer protection, intended to manage these asymmetries between consumers and firms, has increasingly applied to wholesale markets. Sir Howard Davies told us: “Yes, there has been a bit of a blurring of the line between wholesale and retail in recent years. … You cannot completely back off, because the market does like some rules of the game and it likes to appeal to the regulator when it believes these rules have been contravened blatantly, but there has been some blurring of the objectives.” 208