On 10 May 2021, the CAT issued a supplementary judgment in the appeals against a decision of the CMA of 12 February 2016. This followed the CAT’s previous judgment of 8 March 2018, by which certain questions were referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The CJEU issued its ruling on these questions on 30 January 2020. The CAT upheld the CMA’s decision that the applicants had infringed competition law when GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) agreed to make payments totalling £50 million in settlement of patent litigation to other generic suppliers of paroxetine (including Generics (UK) Limited and Alpharma Limited), which were aimed at delaying the potential entry of these competitors into the supply of generic medicines to the UK market.

The CAT nevertheless reduced the penalties on the firms involved to £27.1 million in total, as compared with the CMA’s initial £44.99 million total fine. The CAT also allowed GSK’s appeal against the imposition of a penalty for breach of the Chapter 2 prohibition.