Competition Appeal Tribunal

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The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) of the United Kingdom was created by Section 12 and Schedule 2 to the Enterprise Act 2002 which came into force on 1 April 2003. The Competition Service is an executive non-departmental public body which was created as a support body for the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

Contents

Functions

The current functions of the CAT are:

Cases

Construction bid-rigging

In 2011, a number of fines levied by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) on construction firms found to have engaged in illegal bid-rigging schemes were deemed to be "excessive" and the Tribunal revised the values of the fines. [1]

Online hotel booking

In March 2014, the price-comparison site, Skyscanner, brought a case to the Tribunal, [2] challenging a January 2014 decision by the Office of Fair Trading to settle a probe over pricing of hotel rooms sold online. The OFT's decision had been to accept commitments from a number of online travel agents and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). [3] Skyscanner appealed against the OFT's successor, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), because it believed its business would be affected by the settlement, even though it was not targeted by the investigation. Skyscanner's case was supported by a smaller online travel agent, Skoosh, which had triggered the OFT's original investigation. [4]

In a judgment handed down in September 2014, the Competition Appeal Tribunal quashed the Office of Fair Trading's decision to accept commitments in the online hotel booking sector and the matter was reverted to the CMA for reconsideration. [5]

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References

  1. Competition Appeal Tribunal, Judgment in cases of G F Tomlinson Building and others, [2011] CAT 7, published 24 March 2011, accessed 16 January 2024
  2. "Competition Appeal Tribunal - 1226/2/12/14 Skyscanner Limited". Archived from the original on 10 August 2017. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
  3. "Practical Law". uk.practicallaw.com. Archived from the original on 24 July 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  4. Gompertz, Simon (16 September 2010). "OFT launches investigation into online hotel room sales". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2 October 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  5. Jones, Tristan (28 September 2014). "Skyscanner: CAT quashes commitments in the online booking sector". Competition Bulletin. Archived from the original on 18 March 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2016.