Restraint Of Trade

Advance for Collective Redress in Europe

  Big things are brewing in the move toward collective redress mechanisms in the European Union.  The growing support for such mechanism is in part a result of the growing understanding that businesses and consumers are deprived of billions of euros in compensation for competition wrongs because of the absence of effective mechanisms for seeking redress.  

In April 2008, the European Commission provided a White Paper on the issue, and on March 26, 2009 the European Parliament issued a resolution supporting the White Paper, and recognizing the need for collective redress mechanisms in the European Union.

Parliament's resolution is here, and the Commission's comment is here.

"Bloody Marvellous" - Progress in UK on collective redress for price-fixing

The financial times is reporting (here) that the UK Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform is close to publishing its proposals to facilitate actions for collective redress for price-fixing violations in the UK, with a view to changing the law next year. 

The proposals are expected to mirror those the Civil Justice Council made last month, including an automatic opt-in to lawsuits for consumers.

As the article notes, while US consumers and purchasers have received on several occasions significant payouts as a result of illegal price-fixing conspiracies, those in the UK have trouble getting any redress at all, because of legal impediments. 

   "Deborah Prince, head of legal affairs for Which?, the consumer group, said it would be 'bloody marvellous' if the government followed the thrust of the CJC recommendations, which were 'absolutely spot on.'"

EC Sends Supplementary Objections to Intel

Intel's problems with global competition authorities continue to mount. 

The EC confirmed that it sent today a supplementary Statement of Objections (SSO) to Intel. 

EC Press release here.

The EC's original July 26, 2007 Statement of Objections outlined its preliminay view that Intel infringed EC Treaty rules on abuse of dominant position with the aim of excluding its main rival, AMD, from the x86 central processing unit (CPU) market.

Today's SSO outlines 3 additional elements of abusive conduct:

1. Intel provided substantial rebates to a leading European personal computer retailer conditional on it selling only Intel-based PCs.
2. Intel made payments to an OEM to induce it to delay launch of a product line incorporating an AMD-based CPU.
3. Intel later provided substantial rebates to that same OEM conditional on it obtaining all of its laptop CPU requirements from Intel.

The EC considers all this conduct, and the conduct outlined in original statement, to be part of a single overall anticompetitive strategy aimed at excluding AMD or limiting its access to the market.

Intel has 8 weeks to reply to the SSO, and will then have a right to a hearing.