Alex Potter is a partner in the antitrust, competition and trade group, specialising in EC and UK competition law. His practice includes merger control, state aid law and competition enforcement actions brought by regulators, and he has particular experience in the consumer goods, retail and defence industries. Alex’s experience includes: obtaining EC merger control clearance for CVC Capital Partners Group on the acquisition by CVC Funds of SLEC, the holding company of the Formula One Group; obtaining EC merger control and national security clearances in relation to General Dynamics’ attempted public bid for Alvis; obtaining UK merger control clearance for Vestas Wind Systems on its public bid for NEG Micon; advising the UK Department for Transport and London Underground on the London Underground PPP, including obtaining State Aid clearance from the European Commission and EC/UK merger control clearances.
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On 19 April 2018, the EU’s Court of Justice delivered its judgment in the MEO case, the latest in a recent line of rulings endorsing an effects-based analysis for abuse of dominance cases. EU competition law requires dominant companies not to discriminate between different customers or (...)
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The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled on 6 December 2017 that suppliers may prohibit the sales of their products via third-party online platforms such as Amazon or eBay to preserve the luxury image of their goods . Such restrictions do not infringe the EU prohibition on (...)
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Exclusivity rebates are used in markets ranging from postal deliveries through ice cream to computer processors and are normally regarded as beneficial to consumers. However, when applied by dominant companies such rebates could potentially entrench an existing market position and have been (...)
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Introduction On 10 August 2017, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) issued a rare ‘no grounds for action’ decision following its investigation into whether certain rebate schemes offered by Unilever amounted to an abuse of dominance in breach of UK and EU competition rules (the CMA (...)
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On 10 May 2017, the European Commission (Commission) released the final report on its two-year inquiry into the e-commerce sector (the Report). This Report presents the Commission’s definitive findings, taking account of comments received on its preliminary report of September 2016 and its (...)
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On 1st March 2006 the OFT adopted a decision accepting binding commitments offered by Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL). Accordingly, the OFT closed its file in respect of an investigation into an alleged breach by ANL of UK and EC competition rules through the conclusion of contracts (...)
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In Genzyme Limited v. OFT, 29 September 2005, the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (the “CAT”) tackled the difficult question of how to bring an abusive margin squeeze to an end and to ensure it was not repeated. The background to the proceedings was that the OFT had issued a decision (Director (...)
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On 6 September the UK Office of Fair Trading issued a decision concluding that the collective agreement between members of MasterCard UK Members Forum setting a fallback multilateral interchange fee infringed Article 81 EC and Chapter I of the Competition Act 1998. The Decision only concerns (...)
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Background In a recent case heard before the UK’s Competition Appeals Tribunal (the “CAT”), appeals were allowed to set aside an Office of Fair Trade (“OFT”) infringement decision of the Chapter I prohibition (the UK equivalent to Article 81(1) EC Treaty). The decision in The Racecourse Association (...)
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In order to ensure consistency with the EC regime, the UK system for notification of agreements under the Competition Act 1998 (the CA) was abolished on 1 May 2004. The OFT does not therefore accept notifications for decision or guidance under the Act. The OFT, however, continues to offer a (...)
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OFT, Notice under paragraph 2 of schedule 6a of the Competition Act 1998 of intention to accept binding commitments pursuant to section 31a (2) of the Act (TV Eye Limited), 2 March 2005 The UK Competition Act 1998 was amended, with effect as of 1 May 2004, to allow the OFT to accept binding (...)
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