Competition Act claims advice

Competition Act Claims usually affect large groups of consumers or businesses, so it’s one of the things our Group Action Lawyers do.

Under the Competition Act of 1998, it is illegal for anyone or any company to prevent, restrict, or distort competition in any way. Any person or company who is affected by anti-competitive behaviour by breaching the Competition Act may be eligible to claim for the losses incurred as a result of the breach.

The prevention, restriction of, or distortion of competition can be done in a number of ways. The main two are price fixing and cartels.

By being a monopoly or an oligopoly, companies breaching competition laws abuse the market at the consumer’s expense. Their behaviour also affects small business as they may not be able to keep up with predatory pricing, where process can be set to literally drive out the competition who cannot fairly compete.

Supermarkets have previously been found to have engaged in anti-competitive behaviour in a number of ways. Perhaps you have noticed that your local bakery might not be doing so well, because many people will go to the supermarket and buy bread there for a fraction of the bakery’s prices. Big name supermarkets were found guilty of joining together to price fix milk in the past – making it more expensive for the consumer, whichever supermarket they went to. For this, they were fined millions of pounds.

The Competition Act – enforced by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) – is there to stop consumers from being taken advantage of, and to protect innovation of the products on the market.

There are some really easy examples of where competition it key to ensure consumers are treated fairly. For example, almost everyone in the UK has internet access. We use it to search the internet for information, to keep in contact with friends via social media, and even to do all of our shopping. The Competition Act covers the online market too, and the CMA recently brought about a campaign to warn online retailers not to:

I think I’m affected by anti-competitive behaviour, what can I do?

The CMA can fine up to 10% of the companies’ annual turnover per year whilst in breach for up to 3 years. Some of these companies were absolute giants with huge turnovers, so some could be in the billions.

But you, as a consumer affected by a breach of the Competition Act, you can be entitled to damages to reflect any financial losses caused by the breach of competition.