Insights

London – May 5, 2021: Peter Broadhurst, a highly regarded competition lawyer, is joining Crowell & Moring’s London office as a partner, expanding the firm’s capability to advise clients on their most complex U.K. and EU competition matters.

A number of important Belgian and EU legislative changes are likely to have an impact in 2024. On the one hand, there are new laws that have been adopted and will start to bite, and, on the other, there are proposals that are expected to firm up into law.

In this alert we discuss recent developments in the regulation of third party funding since R (on the application of PACCAR Inc & Ors) v Competition Appeal Tribunal & Ors [2023] UKSC 28, (“PACCAR”) which we discussed in our prior alert. In Alex Neill Class Representative Limited v Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited et al. [2023] CAT 73, the first analysis of a third-party litigation funding agreement (“LFA”) to take place since PACCAR, finding that an optional payment mechanism based on a cut of damages “only to the extent enforceable and permitted by applicable law” will not render the whole LFA an unenforceable damages-based agreement (“DBA”). Meanwhile, the government intends to enact a legislative amendment to make non-lawyer LFAs for group opt-out competition proceedings enforceable, but calls have quickly begun for the government to go further.

In R (on the application of PACCAR Inc & Ors) v Competition Appeal Tribunal & Ors [2023] UKSC 28, the U.K. Supreme Court has declared litigation funding agreements based on a cut of damages to need to comply with the Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2013, while the Court of Appeal in Evans & O’Higgins v Barclays [2023] EWCA Civ 876 expands the scope of likely competition opt out litigation approval.

Please join us for an update on the current developments at the EU level, in Germany as well as in the USA and UK. We look forward to a thoughtful discussion from Stephan Müller of Oppenhoff and Caroline Brown and Peter Broadhurst of Crowell & Moring.

In response to the digital revolution and the increasing impact technology has on business, Competition Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic are stepping up merger control enforcement. They are revising current policies, advocating for more aggressive use of existing rules to their full potential effect, and calling for new laws and regulations where they see the need. What does this mean for companies engaging in transactions in the digital marketplace and other industries? Is it becoming harder to predict if a deal will be subject to merger control? Are some deals more likely to receive enhanced scrutiny than others? And, what are the broader implications for all sectors when Competition Authorities push the boundaries on traditional theories of harm and remedies, and prohibitions become more commonplace?    

Please join us for this year’s virtual Annual EU Competition Law Conference, co-hosted by Crowell & Moring and King’s College. Given major proposed and existing legislative reforms in competition law across the globe, we will explore how these reforms are being or can be practically implemented in a panel discussion, followed by a fireside chat and Q&A session. Topics include: