How statutory duties shape the decision making of an economic regulator: insights from the energy regulatory community, past and present

Abstract

This article is concerned with how statutory duties structure regulatory decisions. Rather than focusing on the role of the courts, we explore statutory interpretation by a regulator as a quasi-autonomous exercise, with external influences and internal norms and customs. To investigate this further, we conducted a series of semi-structured elite interviews with senior members of the energy ‘regulatory community’, past and present. Energy regulation has been selected as a case study due to the controversies in recent years over the legitimate limits of economic regulation, as successive governments have imposed broader public interest goals on the regulator, resulting in a proliferation of statutory objectives. This increased complexity has arguably obscured the appropriate contours and rationales of economic regulation. Nevertheless, it is unrealistic to completely separate regulatory policy and politics.