UK NOW HAS WORLD CLASS COMPETITION REGIME SAYS COMPETITION COMMISSION CHAIRMAN

The UK now has one of the most powerful regimes in the world for dealing with market power, Sir Derek Morris, Competition Commission Chairman, will tell a meeting of top international lawyers in New York today.

When Sir Derek delivers his keynote address at the Fordham Institute in New York, he will explain that, although the UK previously suffered from poor competitiveness and a weak competition regime, this is no longer the case.

“As the magpie bird thieves beautiful objects from wherever it can find them and uses them to line its nest, so the UK has plundered observable best practice from elsewhere, creating a regime that seeks to combine the best elements of other regimes without their drawbacks,” Sir Derek will claim.

“Where the UK regime differs from other regimes, most notably the US and EC, it is not by accident or ignorance, but as a result of using the opportunity of a major reform of the UK regime to absorb the best of both, plus a few unique UK elements.”

Sir Derek, speaking for the UK competition authorities at Fordham, will be joined by Mario Monti, the EC Competition Commissioner, and leaders of other European competition authorities.

Sir Derek will explain that the strength of the new regime lies in its combination of powerful protection against cartels and abuse of market power, based on the European competition regime; the criminalisation of cartels based on the US regime; independent UK competition authorities taking decisions on mergers and on markets that are not working competitively, with a wide set of remedies at their disposal; and full separation in such cases between the OFT’s initial investigation and the CC’s determinative role, all subject to timely oversight by the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

“The UK, after many earlier decades of poor competitiveness and a limited role for competition policy, has now firmly set itself in favour of free and competitive markets, working effectively, as the best means to generate maximum consumer welfare,” he will conclude.

Notes to editors

1. Sir Derek was speaking at the Fordham Corporate Law Institute, Thirtieth Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy at New York City 23-24 October 2003
2. The full text of Sir Derek’s paper will be available on the Competition Commission website: http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/our_peop/members/chair_speeches/index.htm
3 . For further information contact Francis Royle, Competition Commission press office, on 020 7271 0242