ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the ways in which Community and UK competition laws are administered and enforced. The chapter will review the administrative framework for enforcement in each system, the bodies involved in enforcement, and outline the relevant rules for investigation, decision-making and judicial review. The starting point is the European Competition Network (ECN) and the Community framework of enforcement led by the Commission. In particular, we shall address the modernisation of Community competition law introduced by Regulation 1/2003.1 In the UK context, the enforcement structure introduced by the Competition Act 1998 and the Enterprise Act 2002 will be outlined. It should be stressed that the primary enforcement authority in the UK, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), is entrusted with enforcing the Competition Act 1998 prohibitions and Articles 81 and 82 EC, as the UK’s National Competition Authority in the ECN; these will be considered together as the OFT’s investigative and fining powers for both are identical. The enforcement structure for market and merger investigations under the Enterprise Act 2002 will be considered, followed by the developing trends in private enforcement at the EC and UK level, together with the attempts and proposals to facilitate private competition litigation, to act as a complement to public enforcement and further enhance competition law deterrence. Markets, and hence the application of competition rules in relation to market behaviour, are not necessarily confined to the territorial boundaries of either the Community or the UK, particularly given the increasing tendency towards the globalisation of markets. Accordingly, the potential for the extraterritorial application of the competition rules will be considered together with steps towards international co-operation in competition law enforcement.
