This year marks four years since significant statutory reforms regenerated the UK’s collective actions arena. Following a rocky start to this new regime, it appears that 2019 may finally bring some clarity to potential claimants navigating the first hurdle of competition class actions: the Collective Proceedings Order (‘CPO’) application. This is the first stage in the process whereby the Competition Appeals Tribunal (‘CAT’) considers whether to authorise the proposed class representative to bring the claim…

In January of 2017 a private equity firm, Bencis, was found liable for a portfolio company’s involvement as one of 14 cartelists producing flour in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. The Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) ruled that while company was a member of Bencis’s portfolio, Bencis was accountable for their antitrust violations.  This case demonstrates the need for private equity firms to ensure that companies they invest in are in full compliance with…

Competition authorities at both European and national levels are turning their attention to markets affecting the retail sector. The shift in focus is illustrated by the recent inquiries by the European Commission into e-commerce and by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) into the modelling agencies sector, in an effort to discover instances of outright price-fixing, resale price maintenance and restrictions on sales. Typically, sector inquiries are followed by individual investigations, so it is…