Earlier today the Supreme Court handed down its hotly-anticipated judgment regarding the certification of an opt-out competition collective action brought by Walter Merricks against Mastercard. The claim is seeking £14bn in damages on behalf of some 46.2 million UK consumers, in respect of losses alleged to have resulted from the use of anti-competitive multilateral interchanges … Read more

On 24 November 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down a decision on the applicability of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1215/2012 (the Brussels Ia Reg) to competition law disputes in a preliminary reference relating to an action by German hotel Wikingerhof GmbH & Co. KG (Wikingerhof) against Booking.com BV … Read more

We were delighted to support the GCR Interactive: Competition Litigation conference which took place earlier this week. The ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic meant that the conference was hosted online, rather than at the Herbert Smith Freehills London office as in previous years. However, with a distinguished line-up of expert speakers and panellists – … Read more

Introduction1 The Competition Appeal Tribunal (the “Tribunal”) has ruled that two competing collective proceedings applicants in the Forex litigation must go head to head for the right to represent the potential class in one single substantive hearing, which will also determine whether a collective proceedings order (“CPO”) is made at all. With this ruling in … Read more

The below brief addresses a number of interesting developments that occurred in the competition space across Africa during the course of 2019. In South Africa, we consider the amendments to the Competition Act, the enforcement approach to the new buyer power and price discrimination provisions, outcomes of the market inquiries into private healthcare, the grocery … Read more

We are delighted that our overview of collective damages claims in competition cases in the UK has just been published as part of Global Competition Review’s new Guide to Private Litigation. The Guide includes 21 chapters written by leading practitioners, exploring in depth the key themes raised in competition litigation across the globe. We are … Read more

We were delighted to host the annual GCR Live Competition Litigation Conference at our London office yesterday, which explored key current themes in competition litigation in an interactive discussion panel format. Christopher Bellamy QC opened the conference with an insightful keynote address. This was followed by a series of discussions involving a distinguished line up … Read more

In its judgment of 16 April 2019 the Court of Appeal overturned the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s (CAT) decision refusing certification in the MasterCard collective action claim and remitted the case back to the CAT for a re hearing. The CAT’s refusal to certify the claim and grant a Collective Proceedings Order (CPO) had been based … Read more