Competition Law claims post-Brexit: the issue of applicable law

The answer will depend to a large extent on the terms of the Great Repeal Bill. What is clear, however, is that the provisions of Article 101 and 102 TFEU will no longer apply within the territory of the United Kingdom. Those Articles presently have direct effect in the UK legal order. General principles of EU law, including the principle of direct effect, are binding in the UK under Article 6 TEU, read in conjunction with sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act 1972. But it seems inevitable that the Great Repeal Bill will remove the direct effect of substantive EU competition law. Moreover, Regulation 1/2003 (the Modernisation Regulation) will no longer be directly applicable in this jurisdiction. But the terms of the Competition Act 1998 (‘CA 1998’) will still apply. The Chapter I prohibition, for example, prohibits cartel conduct producing an actual or potential effect on trade within the United Kingdom. The provisions of the CA 1998 can no doubt continue in force largely unamended, save of course for section 60 CA 1998 with its focus on aligning as far as possible the position adopted by domestic and EU law on parallel issues.

It will be no secret to those reading this blog that competition law claims in the UK have increased in number in recent years. The ‘mystery of the reluctant plaintiff’ finally seemed to have been resolved.[1] Many of these claims have been brought on the basis of Articles 101 TFEU, Article 53 of the EEA Agreement and the Chapter I prohibition contained in section 2 CA 1998. Indeed, some of these claims have also incorporated claims based on the applicable laws of tort in other Member States of the EU. Does the departure of the UK from the EU mean that these claims will no longer be brought? The answer is very likely to be no. There are two principal reasons.

First, there has been no suggestion that claims seeking to enforce accrued rights to damages cannot be brought once the UK leaves the EU. Anyone who is the victim of cartel conduct, for example, will continue to have rights under EU law which confer a right to damages up until the UK’s departure from the EU. The Great Repeal Bill cannot lawfully deprive victims of the benefit of these accrued rights without seriously risking falling foul of Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights. The English legal system should accordingly continue to recognise the tortious liability of Defendants for damage that occurred while EU law was applicable in this jurisdiction.

Secondly, a distinction needs to be drawn between jurisdiction and applicable law. Once jurisdiction is established against one or more Defendants within this jurisdiction, the question of which claims may be pleaded and proved against them is a question of the applicable law of the tort. At the moment, the applicable law for competition claims for loss arising after 10 January 2009 is determined by the application of the Rome II Regulation[2] (and principally by Article 6(3)). That Regulation will no longer be binding on English courts once we leave the EU. But absent any legislative intervention in the Great Repeal Bill, the default position will then be that the pre-Rome II legislative framework will continue to apply. Section 15A of the Private International Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1995 (‘PILMPA 1995’) suspends the application of that Act when the Rome II Regulation applies. It follows that, when the Rome II Regulation is not applicable (either by virtue of its temporal or geographical scope), then the provisions of PILMPA 1995 remain fully effective.

The 1995 Act abolished the common law requirement of “double-actionability.” So free-standing claims for breach of the competition laws of other Member States – and of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU – can still be advanced in the courts of England and Wales, if the criteria for liability under those laws is met. Where, for example, a claimant sustains loss both in the EU markets and in the UK, there is no reason in principle why a claim for all of its loss cannot be brought in England. Expert evidence would be needed as to what the contents of those laws – including of EU law – are. See section 4(1) of the Civil Evidence Act 1972. But it is common for commercially significant cases to involve the pleading and proof by experts of causes of action based on foreign laws. Sections 11 and 12 of the PILMPA 1995 determine how the applicable law of the relevant tort or torts is to be selected.

One potential issue that arises is whether or not the enforcement of a foreign competition law would fall foul of the prohibition on English courts enforcing foreign, penal laws. Section 14(3)(a)(ii) of the 1995 Act provides that nothing in Part III of that Act “(a) authorises the application of the law of a country outside the forum as the applicable law for determining issues arising in any claim in so far as to do so— . . .(ii) would give effect to such a penal, revenue or other public law as would not otherwise be enforceable under the law of the forum.”

But this provision is highly unlikely to prevent a claim being brought for compensation on the basis of the foreign laws of one or more jurisdictions. A claim for compensation based on a breach of a foreign competition law (or foreign law of tort or delict) is not the enforcement of a penal law. Such claims do not amount to an attempt to enforce a competition law which gives the national competition authorities in those foreign jurisdictions powers to fine cartelists. In Huntington v. Attrill [1893] AC 150, PC, Lord Watson at p. 157-158 stated: “A proceeding, in order to come within the scope of the rule, must be in the nature of a suit in favour of the State whose law has been infringed.” That is not the case where a claimant (who is in any event not likely to be a public body in a foreign state) is claiming a compensatory remedy rather than enforcing a fine or penalty. See United States Securities and Exchange Commission v. Manterfield [2009] EWCA Civ 27; [2010] 1 W.L.R. 172, CA per Waller LJ at [19] to [23].

It follows that if jurisdiction of the English Courts can be established, then there is no insuperable impediment to claimants bringing claims for loss arising from cartels and other anti-competitive conduct in much the same way as they do at present.

[1] The “mystery of the reluctant plaintiff” was a reference by J. Maitland-Walker at a conference in London, 1982, cited in Enric Picañol, Remedies in national law for breach of Articles 85 and 86 of the EEC Treaty – a Review, Legal Issues of European Integration, Deventer No. 2 (1983) 1 at page 2. Comprehensive reasons why there were not more claims under the pre-Modernisation competition regime were provided by John Temple Lang in EEC Competition Actions in Member States’ Courts – Claims for damages, declarations and injunctions for breach of Community Antitrust Law (1983-4) vol. 7 Fordham Intl L.J. 389 at page 407.

[2] Regulation (EC) No 864/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 July 2007 on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations.