The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) on 8 August 2022 set aside a £17.9 million fine against price comparison website Compare The Market, criticising the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) legal and evidential assessment of the case.  The CAT found that the CMA’s “anecdotal evidence[1] failed to prove that Compare The Market kept home insurance premiums artificially high by using most favoured nation clauses (MFNs) in its contracts with insurance providers.  The CMA has said it is disappointed with the CAT’s ruling and is considering its options, including a potential appeal.

Cleary Gottlieb partners Nicholas Levy, Paul Gilbert, and Jackie Holland and associate Courtney Olden co-authored the “UK” chapter of the 

On July 12, the CMA published its final guidance (the Guidance) accompanying the UK’s block exemption for vertical agreements (VABEO).[1] 

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last week fined pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Flynn £63 million and £6.7 million for engaging in excessive pricing.  In the CMA’s view, the companies charged unfairly high prices for Phenytoin capsules, a genericised anti-epilepsy drug, in violation of competition law.

On July 15, 2022, China’s antitrust authority SAMR announced a three-year pilot program beginning August 1, 2022 to delegate the review of certain simplified-procedure merger filings that the agency currently handles on its own, to five of its local branches (“AMRs”) in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Chongqing, and Shaanxi.  Each of the five local AMRs will be responsible for a specific geographic area (“Territory”) within China.  This is the first step to implement China’s “categorized and classified” merger control review regime under the new Anti-Monopoly Law.[1]