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Report

Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority: Non-Executive Member Term Extension

Published on: 27 February 2026

Presented by: Minister for Sustainable Economic Development

Reference: R.31/2026

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STATES OF JERSEY

JERSEY COMPETITION REGULATORY AUTHORITY: NON-EXECUTIVE MEMBER TERM EXTENSION

Presented to the States on 27th February 2026

by the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development

STATES GREFFE

2026  R.31

2

REPORT

Under Article 3(3A) of the Competition Regulatory Authority (Jersey) Law 2001 (the "Law"),  the  Minister  for  Sustainable  Economic  Development  (the  "Minister")  is required to notify the States of appointments of Members of the Jersey Competition

Regulatory Authority (the "Authority").  

Following consultation with the Chair of the Authority, Ms Stephanie Liston, the Minister extended the appointment of Dr Ian Walden to the Board of the Authority by one year under powers conferred by Article 3(1)(b) of the Law. His current appointment, which commenced on 7 October 2024 and is scheduled to expire on 6 October 2027, will therefore be extended to 6 October 2028.

Background  

Members will be aware that, following a competitive recruitment process, Dr Walden was first appointed to the Board of the Authority as a Non-Executive Member in 2020 for a period of four years, commencing on 7 October 2020 (R.113/2020).

He was subsequently re-appointed as a Non-Executive Member for a further term of three  years  until  6  October  2027  and,  additionally,  as  the  Authority's  Senior Independent Member. The latter appointment took effect upon the conclusion of the previous incumbent's term of office in February 2025 (R.138/2024).

On 20 January 2026, the Chair of the Authority wrote to the Minister recommending that Dr Walden's appointment is extended to 6 October 2028. This extension was proposed to ensure continuity within the Board and to support the smooth integration of the incoming Chair. Without such an extension, Dr Walden's term would conclude on the same date as that of one of the other Non-Executive Members, Ms Lara Stoimenova, resulting in the need to undertake two Board appointment processes simultaneously.

Article 4(2) of the Law allows re-appointment of Members of the Authority stating that "[a] member shall be appointed for a period not exceeding 5 years and upon expiry of such period shall be eligible for reappointment". In accordance with this provision, at the end of Dr Walden's extended term of office, he will have served a total of 8 years

on the Board of the Authority.

Recommendation of Dr Ian Walden

Dr  Walden  has  a  depth of knowledge and practical experience  of the  regulatory frameworks for which the Authority is responsible, particularly telecommunications, as well as those areas of emerging concern for the JCRA, including consumer protection and data protection.

He  is  a  Professor  of  Information  and  Communications  Law  at  the  Centre  for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS)  at the  Queen Mary  University of London. His publications include Media Law and Practice (2009), Free and Open Source Software (2013),  Computer  Crimes  and  Digital  Investigations  (2nd  ed.,  2016)  and Telecommunications Law and Regulation (5th ed., 2018).

Dr Walden has been a visiting professor at the universities of Texas, Melbourne and KU Leuven. He has been involved in law reform projects for the World Bank, European

R.31/2026

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Commission, Council of Europe, Commonwealth and UNCTAD, as well as numerous individual states.  Dr Walden  was an  expert  nationaux  détaché'  to the  European Commission (1995-96), Board Member and Trustee of the Internet Watch Foundation (2004-09), on the Executive Board of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (2010- 12),  on  the  Press  Complaints  Commission  (2009-14),  a  member  of  the  RUSI Independent Surveillance Review (2014-15), a member of the Code Adjudication Panel at the Phone-paid Services Authority (2016-21), a member of the European Commission Expert Group to support the application of the GDPR (2017-21) and Director of CCLS (2018-22).

Dr Walden is a solicitor and Of Counsel to Baker McKenzie. He furthermore founded Queen Mary's qLegal initiative and is a principal investigator on the Cloud Legal Project and co-author of Cloud Computing Law (2nd ed., 2021).

Accepting the Chair's recommendation and taking into consideration Dr Walden's valuable contribution to the work of the Authority since his initial appointment in 2020, the Minister agreed to extend his appointment as Non-Executive Member and Senior Independent Member by one year until 6 October 2028.

Balance of the Board  

There will be no change to the balance of the Board of the Authority as a result of the extension of Dr Walden's appointment. The current Board consists of:

two long standing Jersey residents (Mr Ed Daubeney and Mr Tim Ringsdore);

two women (Ms Stephanie Liston and Dr Lara Stoimenova);

two lawyers who have a broad legal knowledge (Ms Stephanie Liston and Dr Ian Walden); and

one  economist  who  is  expert  in  regulation  and  competition  (Dr  Lara

Stoimenova).

Resource implications  

The Department for the Economy provides the Authority with an Annual Grant to administer the Competition (Jersey) Law 2005 and conduct market studies.  

Fees payable to Non-Executive Members of the Authority are sourced from the Annual Grant made to the Authority, as well as from the Authority's own accounts.  

There are no other resource implications for the Government of Jersey arising from this appointment.  

R.31/2026