Archive for July 26th, 2012
Reform of UK competition law- Part 1: public enforcement
[Over the course of two posts, Christopher Brown (Matrix Chambers) blogs on the substantial reform agenda in the UK. The first post looks at the reform of the public enforcement regime; the second will consider the recent proposals to reform private enforcement].
As readers will probably know, back in March 2011 the UK Government, through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (“BIS”), launched a consultation on potential reform to the UK competition law landscape (see my earlier post here). It contained a number of bold suggestions for redesigning the domestic regime. After a 3-month consultation period and, seemingly, much head-scratching, BIS announced its concrete proposals for reform on 15 March 2012. Those proposals are now contained in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament. Then, as if the Department didn’t have enough on its plate already, it launched a consultation on reform to private actions in the UK. In these posts, I touch on the main aspects of both proposals and offer some limited comments.
Reform of the public enforcement regime
Given space constraints, this section touches on just three of the reform proposals, relating to institutional architecture, enforcement model and the cartel offence.
Chillin'Competition 