Recasting Competition Concurrency under the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013

Bibliographic Data

ID9193792
AuthorsNiamh Dunne (London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume77
Issue2
Pages254-276
Publication date2014-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern Law Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0026-7961 • E-ISSN: 1468-2230
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1468-2230.12065
OpenAlexW1957311454
LanguageEN
References cited15

The concurrent enforcement power granted to certain sector economic regulators is one of the more remarkable features of UK competition law. In practice, regulators have tended to under‐enforce their competition powers, preferring to resolve market difficulties through regulatory interventions. Recent amendments to the concurrency framework, introduced by sections 51 to 53 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, seek both to strengthen the priority of competition enforcement and to provide plausible sanctions – including, ultimately, the removal of competition jurisdiction from regulators – for continued underuse. This article assesses these reforms in light of the history and (limited) application of the concurrent competition powers of regulators to date. It argues that the absence of an overarching policy rationale for this curious example of UK antitrust ‘exceptionalism’ complicates the determination of whether the reforms, which ostensibly seek to reinforce but potentially also undermine concurrency, are likely to have a positive market impact in practice

Business · Competition (biology) · Competition law · Economics · Enforcement · Exceptionalism · Jurisdiction · Law and economics · Market economy · Monopoly · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Regulatory reform · Sanctions · EU Law and Policy Analysis · European and International Law Studies · Global Financial Regulation and Crises · Law