In March 2011, the U.K. Government Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (“BIS”) consulted on proposed reforms to the U.K. competition regime. The objectives were lofty (“improving the robustness of decisions,” “supporting the competition authorities in taking forward high impact cases,” and “improving speed and predictability for businesses”) and the proposals in part structural (most…
Competition authorities are forever looking to be more efficient. With limited resources and an almost unlimited supply of complaints and applications for immunity, the premium attached to efficiency in antitrust enforcement has never been greater. From the publication of decisions to the issuance of guidelines, and from the promotion of private enforcement to the giving…
We all lose our temper sometimes. The trick, of course, is to get something out of it rather than drop ourselves in it. But this is sometimes easier said than done. Take the UK supermarket giant Tesco. In August, it lost its rag after it’d been fined almost £10.5m by the Office of Fair Trading…
Managing disappointment is as important for businesses as it is for individuals. But it can be particularly hard to do if you’ve been encouraged or threatened by possible change which then, suddenly, seems to evaporate into a big wet nothingness. Take, for instance, the draft groceries code adjudicator bill recently published by the UK’s Department…
Business executives like to stress the impersonality of their work. If things go wrong, then, sure, there are commercial consequences but that’s usually where it ends. Things have to be pretty gross before people start paying any serious attention to personal consequences – and very bad indeed before they recognise a genuine loss of integrity…
Consumer belief in all regulation and its efficacy has taken such an enormous battering following the banking crisis that regulators have to look more like policemen and less like flunkeys if they want to be taken seriously.
UK competition rules and enforcement infrastructure When it comes to competition law enforcement, does the UK pursue a different path to its European counterparts? Well, it is British tradition to favour a common sense approach and we have been known to criticise the arcane bureaucracy of certain supra-national institutions. These preferences will surely be revealed…
