Linklaters partner Gavin Robert and Hogan Lovells London competition head Lesley Ainsworth are among four lawyers joining the Competition Commission in an 18-strong round of new appointments to the regulator.

The appointments, announced yesterday (10 April) by consumer minister Jo Swinson, come ahead of the merger of the Commission and the Office of Fair Trading to create the new Competition and Markets Authority next April.

Ainsworth, who joins on 1 July, has been a partner at Hogan Lovells since 1988, and has led the firm's competition practice for several years.

Meanwhile, Robert, who joins on 1 May, has been a partner in Linklaters' London office for 14 years. He will retire from the firm later this month, following which he will teach a module on international merger control at the University of Cambridge.

They are joined by John Wotton, the former President of the Law Society of England & Wales, and currently a consultant at Allen & Overy, where he formerly led the international public procurement group. He spent more than 23 years as a partner at the magic circle firm and was last year awarded the City of London Law Society Lifetime Achievement Award at the British Legal Awards.

The fourth legal appointee is Michael Hutchings, who was previously a partner at Hogan Lovells, where he headed the firm's Brussels office for four years. He currently practises independently.

"These are experienced people with strong international reputations," said Swinson. "They will bring new experience and expertise to the Commission and will further ensure its reputation as a world-class competition authority."

"It's a very positive sign that such high calibre people can be attracted by the chance to use the expertise and judgement they've gained elsewhere in the most important competition cases," said Competition Commission chairman Roger Witcomb.

Other solicitors on the panel include former City partners Malcolm Nicholson (Slaughter and May), Tony Morris (Linklaters), Katherine Holmes (Reed Smith) and Roger Finbow (Ashurst). The current deputy chairman is former Hogan Lovells EU and competition practice head Simon Polito.

Solicitors stepping down from the Commission include former Slaughters partner Laura Carstensen, former CMS Cameron McKenna partner Richard Taylor and former Law Society president and current CMS Cameron McKenna consultant Fiona Woolf.