In March 2014, the Office of Fair Trading (“OFT”) announced that it had adopted a decision finding that a leading manufacturer of mobility scooters, Pride, had illegally prevented its dealers from advertising prices online, other than its recommended retail price (“RRP”). This followed an earlier decision, adopted in August 2013, finding a slightly different infringement…

Inductive reasoning is sometimes explained by using either the ‘duck test’ (“if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”) or the ‘elephant test’ (“it is difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it”). In EU competition law, it sometimes…

Two unusual features of the United Kingdom’s merger control regime are that notification is voluntary and there is no ‘suspension’ obligation. This means that mergers can be – and routinely are – completed without notification to and/or approval by the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”). In this article, I examine the CMA’s use of its…

On 15 August 2014, the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) approved Alliance Medical Group’s completed acquisition of IBA Molecular’s radioactive medical tracer business. Although IBA’s business was loss-making, would have exited the market and there was no other credible buyer for it, the CMA refused to apply the ‘failing firm’ (or ‘exiting firm’) defence, as…

Private damages litigation is an important complement to public enforcement of UK and EU competition law by the European Commission and national competition authorities (“NCAs”), such as the UK’s newly formed Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”). Whilst there has been a noticeable increase in private litigation seen in the UK courts, whether ‘follow-on’ or ‘standalone…

Private competition litigation is continuing to develop in the United Kingdom. The courts and the Competition Appeal Tribunal are seeing an increase in the number and complexity of follow-on damages actions, often between foreign claimants and/or defendants. In addition, an increasing number of “standalone” competition disputes between private parties are being brought in the courts,…

In competition investigations, competition authorities receive substantial amounts of confidential business information, some of which will be commercially very sensitive. This information may be used in economic modelling or otherwise be used by the authority to identify anti-competitive conduct, effects or market structures. Some information may be exculpatory. In a recent judgment (BMI Healthcare and…

In 2007, the European Commission prohibited Ryanair’s attempted hostile bid to acquire rival Irish airline, Aer Lingus. It also refused to order Ryanair to divest its 29.8% stake in Aer Lingus, which it had built up during its aborted public bid. The General Court later upheld both the prohibition of the merger and the refusal to require divestment of the minority shareholding. Subsequently, the UK Office of Fair Trading investigated Ryanair’s minority shareholding in Aer Lingus; Ryanair’s challenges to the OFT’s jurisdiction were rejected by both the Competition Appeal Tribunal and the Court of Appeal. On 1 June the Supreme Court refused Ryanair leave to appeal, thus confirming the OFT’s ability to investigate the transaction, which it referred to the Competition Commission on 15 June. However, immediately thereafter, Ryanair launched a third hostile bid to acquire Aer Lingus, leading to further litigation before the CAT to challenge the Competition Commission’s jurisdiction.
This blog post examines the complex interaction of European Commission and national authority jurisdiction to examine different transactions involving the same parties, as well as the OFT’s reasons for referring Ryanair’s minority shareholding to the Competition Commission.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal has upheld the Competition Commission’s decision to require Stericycle to divest the entirety of Ecowaste Southwest following its prohibition of the completed merger. In dismissing Stericycle’s appeal, the Tribunal confirmed that the Commission is not obliged to identify of its own motion all possible remedies, but merely those that would clearly resolve the harm to competition caused by the merger. It also held that, in a completed merger, the purchaser takes the risk of being required to divest the entire business acquired by it, if this is necessary to restore effective competition.

A recent CC decision, Stericycle/Ecowaste Southwest, in which it prohibited a completed merger and required the divestment of the acquired business, is a salutary reminder to companies that do not wait for merger clearance before completing their transaction.