Private enforcement of competition law, the hidden story part II : competition litigation settlements in the UK, 2008-2012

Rodger, Barry J. (2015) Private enforcement of competition law, the hidden story part II : competition litigation settlements in the UK, 2008-2012. Global Competition Litigation Review, 8 (3). pp. 89-108. ISSN 1756-6002

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Abstract

The author has undertaken research in recent years to attempt to provide a comprehensive account, over various periods, of all competition law litigation in the UK courts, involving the application of both EU and UK competition law, and was also principal Investigator on a wider AHRC funded project on competition case-law in the courts of all EU Member States between 1999-2012. The latter revealed interesting data and trends on competition litigation in the UK and across the EU. However, it has always been recognised that competition law disputes which are made visible by the existence of court judgments, and especially by final substantive judgments on the merits, are likely to be the ‘tip of the iceberg’. This was the rationale which underlay an earlier project by the author to collect information on the number and types of competition law settlements which took place between 2000 and 2005 in the UK, and sought to identify and inform about the ‘hidden story’ of settlement practice in the UK. The limited publicly available information in the UK can be contrasted with the USA, where there is considerably more antitrust litigation, a number of aspects of the litigation process have been considered and resolved, and where there is also more evidence of antitrust litigation settlement practice and outcomes. This article provides an account of a follow-up research project on competition litigation settlements in the UK, in relation to the period 2008-2012, comprising an extensive and focused analysis of the data accumulated in relation to the reported settlements during that period.

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