The Employed Bar: Life as a lawyer at Ofcom
As part of our 2024 Annual Review, barrister Samuel Buyoya (pictured left) shared what it’s like to work in the legal team at Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator. From high-profile investigations to international secondments, Samuel’s work spans competition law, public policy, and beyond. Here, he offers a glimpse into the legal challenges and opportunities at the forefront of regulating modern communications.
What is Ofcom?
The Office of Communications (Ofcom) is a statutory corporation created by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It is a regulatory body and its functions cover a range of sectors including television, radio, spectrum, telecoms, network security and postal sectors Ofcom also has concurrent powers alongside the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to enforce competition law and consumer protection law. More recently Ofcom was appointed as the regulator under the aOnline Safeaty Act 2023. In addition to Ofcom’s specific statutory duties, as a public authority it is also subject to general public law.
The legal team
The close-knit legal team is led by our General Counsel, Martin Ballantyne and currently consists of approximately 80 lawyers. Ofcom lawyers come from a variety of backgrounds and bring a diverse range of experience and expertise from various practice areas. That experience ranges from private practice to industry in-house legal teams and public bodies. The team also includes other employed barristers.
Ofcom lawyers are usually involved in matters for their entire lifecycle from initial advice (eg early-stage policy development or decisions to open investigations) through to the project stage and litigation, should a matter get contentious. Sometimes this is as part of a team of lawyers working on big project or independently with a senior member of the legal team acting as a peer reviewer.
The legal team works across Ofcom’s remit. As a consequence, the life of a lawyer at Ofcom is varied and invariably high profile. Our work is often the subject of political and public interest and debate. New and significant points of law also arise often.
What do I do at Ofcom?
I joined Ofcom in November 2021 from the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Since then, some of the matters that I have worked on include:
• Sepura/Motorola – an investigation under the Competition Act 1998 into whether competitors in the provision of equipment and related services in the electronic communications sector in the UK infringed competition law through the sharing of commercially sensitive information.
• Radiocentre v Ofcom – a judicial review challenge brought by Radiocentre (an industry body for commercial radio in the UK) against Ofcom in relation to the launch of an online dance music offering by the BBC called Radio 1 Dance ([2023] EWHC 1977 (Admin)).
• The Cloud Market Study – the first market study undertaken by Ofcom using its concurrent powers under the Enterprise Act 2002. This year-long study examined the cloud services market in the UK and the position of Amazon, Microsoft and Google. It led to a market investigation reference to the CMA.
• The Vodafone/Three merger – Ofcom’s input into the CMA’s investigation into the proposed joint venture between Vodafone and Three to combine their UK telecoms businesses.
• Openreach Quality of Service investigation – an investigation into Openreach’s quality-of-service performance in leased lines access and wholesale local access in 2022/23.
• The Telecoms Access Review – Ofcom’s review of the regulations that will apply to the UK fixed telecoms markets from April 2026 until March 2031.
As a Principal Legal Advisor, I lead the provision of legal advice to colleagues on a range of matters on most of the projects I work on. This usually involves advising colleagues across Ofcom. The day-to-day work ranges from attending meetings with senior colleagues to more routine project meetings on long running projects. It often involves engaging with external stakeholders, whether that is other public bodies (eg the CMA, government departments etc) or a stakeholder’s external legal advisers.
My clients at Ofcom cover the range of Ofcom’s business groups – for my work this has included economists, technologists, the Networks and Communications group, our Enforcement Team, spectrum engineers and colleagues in our Broadcasting and Media group. On a practical level those clients are often in the same building, on the same floor or a virtual call away. This means you have more day-to-day contact.
For example, on the Cloud Market Study, I was the lead day-to-day lawyer and worked with a Senior Legal Advisor (Senior Associate) and Legal Advisor (Associate) overseeing their work on the study. I reported to one of our Legal Directors as well as our General Counsel. On other projects I am sometimes the only lawyer.
Where litigation arises, Ofcom works with self-employed barristers who are instructed to assist with the case. On the Radiocentre case that was with Tristan Jones (now KC) and Hollie Higgins of Blackstone Chambers.
Secondment opportunities also arise. I write this article from Washington DC where I am currently an International Fellow at the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as a Pegasus Scholar*. As part of the FTC’s International Fellow Program I joined the Bureau of Competition on a six-month secondment. This opportunity was only possible with the strong support of Ofcom’s General Counsel and my line manager, one of the Legal Directors. Other legal colleagues have undertaken secondments to government departments.
Overall, working as a lawyer at Ofcom is incredibly stimulating and has given me a deeper and broader level of experience under the broad umbrella of public law.
* A report that I will prepare for the Pegasus Scholarship Trust on my time in the US will be published on the Trust’s webpage when I return.