Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

This was introduced into the House of Commons on 23^rd May 2012 and had their second reading on 11^th June 2012 and the reforms to competition law are contained in Parts 3 and 4, as well as Schedules 4 to 14. The competition law reforms are part of a wider package of reforms which cover a Green Investment Bank, changes to employment law, certain measures aimed at reducing regulatory burdens in legislation, some changes to copyright law and provisions relating to the remuneration of directors. This is important because it first signals that competition policy is part of a broader package of measures aimed at deregulation and stimulating growth and also that it is possible that the Parliamentary passage of the legislation may be delayed because of concerns regarding other parts of the Bill. It was noticeable that the most of the controversy in the second reading debate surrounded the employment provisions of the Bill and there was little discussion of the competition provisions (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm120611/debtext/120611-0002.htm#12061114000001). At the moment, there would appear to be little difference between the government and the opposition on the competition aspects, as the Shadow Business Secretary, Chuka Umunna, has said that in principle the Labour party support the reforms to the competition law regime. Quite how easily the reform of the criminal cartel offence will go down, with the removal of dishonesty, remains to be seen as the CBI has already expressed its disquiet. As regards line by line scrutiny of the Bill, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Committee has seven days set aside and must complete this phase by 17^th July.

It never rains …

There I was, thinking that I could happily get away with a bit of time digesting, on the Eurostar, the government's response to its consultation on competition policy before posting anything (which is available here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/Consultations/competition-regime-for-growth) and possibly including the General Court's decision in Cases t-29 and 33/10 Netherlands and ING v Commission, judgment of 2 March 2012, which is the first case to deal with the legality of decisions in the financial crisis, when certain other things happened. To wit, the OFT is consulting on changes to its procedures for antitrust cases, as a follow on from the UK government's decisions on reform of competition policy (available at: http://www.oft.gov.uk/OFTwork/consultations/ca98-investigation-procedures/), the General Court has decided Cases T-336/07 and T-398/07 Telefónica, Telefónica de España and Spain v Commission, judgment of 29 March 2012 on margin squeeze (the court press release is here: http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-03/cp120040en.pdf - no English language version yet) and the Northern Irish gas regulator has referred a price control case to the Competition Commission (http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/our-work/phoenix-natural-gas-limited-price-determination). By now, it is old news that John Fingleton will be leaving the OFT in September (although he had interesting things to say in a newspaper interview: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/profiles/9105975/John-Fingleton-Im-not-sure-if-companies-are-more-compliant-or-just-more-devious.html ). So, apologies, as things may well come out in a somewhat bitty fashion, especially as the weather's nice and the garden needs some work …

Joaquin Almunia on IPRs and patents

An interview with Joaquin Almunia on IPRs, patents and competition issues.  As before, my thanks to Kasper Peters of viEUws for this content.  

Interview with Commissioner Almunia on state aid

 A very interesting interview with Commmissioner Joaquin Almunia on his plans for state aid reform.  My thanks to Kasper Peters of viEUws for permission to show this.  

Their website is at:  http://www.vieuws.eu/

Conference on reform of UK competition policy

Newcastle University are holding a conference entitled, "The BIS Consultation on a Competition Regime for Growth: One Year On" on 13 April 2012. There is a very strong group of speakers, including Peter Freeman (ex-Chairman of the Competition Commission), William Kovacic (ex-chairman of the Federal Trade Commission) and Alison Jones, among others. Details are here: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/niassh/events/supported/CompetitionLaw.htm

Interesting title, which might be taken as meaning they know something the rest of us don't! Also it will be interesting to see if the competition law community will leave the comforts of London for Newcastle or travel down from Edinburgh.

Reform of UK competition policy

A well informed source tells me that BIS is planning to publish a consultation paper on collective redress and damages actions in competition policy sometime in March. Given that they have not produced a response to their previous consultation document, this will be interesting. Quite how they will then manage to coordinate changes in public and private enforcement of competition law with the changes in the consumer landscape is another good question.

In the meantime, I'm off to a government department to play a small part in policy-making by PowerPoint!

Essay marking

If I never have to mark another essay on predatory pricing, it will be too soon! Just discovered the aquatic version: "pricing below coast".