By decision of 2 April 2014,1 the Commission imposed fines of over €300 million on a number of producers of (extra) high voltage underground and/or submarine power cables for participating in an anticompetitive cartel. Such cables are typically used to transmit and distribute electricity and to interconnect power grids in different countries. According to the […]

The High Court rejected a jurisdiction challenge by Prysmian and NKT, defendants in a UK follow-on damages claim being brought by Vattenfall the state-owned Swedish electrical wind power company and others following the Commission’s power cable cartel decision. The judgment as handed down on 4 June 2018 is here. A case note will follow. Philip […]

After an unprecedented 10-day hearing, the Court of Appeal handed down judgment today in the three linked appeals on the lawfulness of interchange fees, in Sainsbury’s v MasterCard (Competition Appeal Tribunal), Asda and others v MasterCard (Commercial Court) and Sainsbury’s v Visa (Commercial Court). In the UK, interchange fees are fees charged on all card […]

In an important ruling issued today, the Court of Justice has held that, in requiring a transgender person to be unmarried in order to be recognised in her acquired gender for the purposes of claiming a state retirement pension (SRP), UK legislation gave rise to discrimination on grounds of sex, contrary to EU law. The […]

Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust v Lancashire County Council [2018] EWHC 1589 (TCC) The High Court (Mr Justice Stuart Smith) has today handed down a judgment setting aside the award of a contract for public health nursing services by Lancashire County Council to Virgin Care Services Limited.  The Court has upheld a challenge made by […]

The Competition Appeal Tribunal handed down a Judgment today setting aside parts of the CMA’s decision imposing combined fines on the pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer and Flynn, of around £90 million for charging unfairly high prices for the anti-epileptic drug, phenytoin sodium capsules, in breach of Article 102 TFEU / the Chapter II prohibition. Although the […]

On 5 June 2018, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport published the final report of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and announced his decision on the proposed acquisition by Fox of the remaining shares in Sky plc. The CMA’s final report confirms its provisional finding that the transaction is not […]

On 23 May, the European Commission published its Written Observations submitted under Article 15(3) of Regulation 1/2003 in the Appeals in the English Court of Appeal against the 3 first instance Judgments dealing with the claims against MasterCard and Visa for recovery of multilateral interchange fees (MIFs). Article 15(3) provides that the Commission may, acting […]

The Court of Appeal has decided that VAT repayment claims made under section 80 VATA must refer to quarterly or monthly accounting periods. In Bratt, the taxpayer purported to make a Fleming claim for the whole of 1989 without identifying which of the sums claimed related to particular accounting periods. The Court of Appeal agreed […]

Kassie Smith QC has been appointed by the States of Jersey to carry out an independent review of the Jersey Competition and Regulatory Authority (JCRA) following the Royal Court judgment in ATF Overseas Holdings Ltd v JCRA. The review will look into the circumstances leading up to a decision by the JCRA that ATF Fuels […]