John Bridgeman is the former head of the Office of Fair Trading who ordered the Stock Exchange to introduce order-driven dealing, slammed pension fund costs and made investment banks bring competition into underwriting fees on rights issues. But if he was unloved in the City, the director-general had few fans in Whitehall either and quit when it became clear ministers would not reappoint him.

It was in 2001, the year after he left, however, that the OFT ordered a competition inquiry into bookmaker William Hill's complaint about the British Horseracing Board's supply of pre-race information to internet betting sites. But the dispute between the BHB and the bookie has finally caught up with Bridgeman.