Written by Stephen C. Tupper Last year, the European Commission (the “Commission”) announced in its first annual report on trade and investment barriers that one of the items on its “to-do” list was to find a way to eradicate trading obstacles faced by EU exporters in certain markets outside the EU, where the same obstacles were not faced by exporters located in such jurisdictions seeking access to their counterpart markets within the EU. The Commission…

Written by Stephen C. Tupper Thames Water has been engaged in battle with Ofwat and Independent Water Networks Limited (“IWNL”) for the right to supply the 67-acre King’s Cross redevelopment site with water and sewerage services for several years. A recent decision from the Court of Appeal has brought proceedings to an end by rejecting Thames Water’s appeal against the judicial review decision which confirmed that Ofwat was acting within its powers by granting an…

Written by Ifé O. Adebajo and Lisa Navarro In January 2012, the highly publicised bribery case against the UK construction company Mabey & Johnson Limited (“M&J“) reached a climactic conclusion. The resulting decision has sent shockwaves through the hearts and wallets of shareholders and investors with interests in entities that carry on business in the UK. Background In 2009, M&J pleaded guilty to corruption offences and breach of UN sanctions for making payments of over…

Written by Stephen C. Tupper The European Commission has published proposals for modernising the EU public procurements rules with a suite of new directives including: a new directive on public procurement to replace Directive 2004/18 (“New Procurement Directive”); a new directive on procurement by entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors to replace Directive 2004/17 (“New Utilities Directive”); and a new directive on the award of concession contracts. The Commission’s intention…

Written by Lisa Navarro and Stephen C. Tupper On 1 December 2012 the Court of Appeal (“CA“) upheld the High Court’s decision in the dispute between Wayne Rooney and his former management company, Proactive Sports Management Limited (“Proactive“). The case centred around whether or not the image rights agreement (the “Agreement“) that Wayne Rooney entered into with Proactive when he was 17 was unenforceable by reason of it being in restraint of trade. The High…

Written by Simon Harms and Stephen C. Tupper 1. Background A significant number of countries worldwide now operate mandatory merger control regimes. Cross-border M&A activity, as a result, increasingly involves notifications in several jurisdictions. Most regimes are national in scope, however, important supranational merger control regimes exist – such as European Union (“EU”) merger control. Whilst EU merger control operates as a “one-stop shop” for the entire EU1for transactions meeting certain thresholds, 26 of the…

Written by Simon Harms and Stephen C. Tupper In September 2011, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “CJEU”), handed down its judgment in the latest of a series of successful challenges to the European Commission’s (the “Commission”) practice of holding parent companies jointly liable for the antitrust sins of their subsidiaries. The basic position in EU competition law was settled in 2009 in the case of Akzo Nobel v Commission in which…