Competition law

All businesses need to understand the restrictions within which they must operate in order to stay “on the right side of the law”.  Appreciating where your business sits in relation to competition law is an important part of that understanding.

The potential costs of defending your business against allegations of an infringement and the fines for a failed defence against any such allegations can be highly significant. In the light of the first criminal prosecutions and director disqualification orders, directors and employees are now very much in the firing line. 

The most prevalent competition law compliance risks vary from industry to industry and sometimes in the light of the maturity of specific products or services within each industry. Certain sectors are particularly prone to cartel activity. Others may be growing and in those sectors businesses may be engaged in licensing, the roll out of distribution agreements or the establishment of joint ventures designed to assist market expansion. Finally, a sector may be undergoing high levels of acquisition activity or consolidation. The culture within a given business may expose its officers and employees to particularly high levels of risk.

We can help you to identify the types of risks associated with different markets, different levels of market maturity and your business. We can assist you by reviewing your commercial or corporate activities and business strategies. We are experts in providing competition law compliance training and programmes which are appropriate to your business and can help you to appreciably reduce your exposure to competition law fines, damages actions and the risk of your commercial arrangements proving illegal and unenforceable.

Our lawyers regularly advise on both domestic and European competition law.  Many of our clients have business arrangements which involve them entering into agreements with commercial partners in the EU and beyond. Our lawyers are used to dealing with the cross jurisdictional issues which these arrangements can generate.

Many, if not most, businesses stray into compliance infringements as a consequence of commercial decisions which, in isolation, appear appropriate to the commercial dynamics of the market. Executives may inadvertently expose their companies to a wide range of competition law compliance issues – we can ensure that your risks in this complex and dangerous legal field are kept to a minimum.