Competition

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Chambers & Partners

Fountain Court members are instructed in high-profile and high-value competition disputes and to advise on competition issues including in relation to investigations.

Our excellent reputation for top-quality advocacy, particularly in large-scale litigation involving multiple parties and various jurisdictions, has resulted in members playing a central role in a significant number of follow-on actions arising from cartel or similar decisions. We have particular experience  in industry areas such as aviation and travel, banking, financial services and technology.

For example, our members have advised in many long-running competition matters including in relation to FX, LIBOR and bank charges as well as in other sectors such as technology and travel. Our members have also acted in many cases for the Civil Aviation Authority and major airlines in competition cases, including in relation to the state protection of non-profitable air routes and in the context of mergers.

We have also been asked to advise in the context of behavioural antitrust investigations by both the Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission, on questions of both UK and EU law.

Our expertise also extends to other areas of competition law, including state aid and subsidies (where our members have advised both public authorities and private recipients of aid) and public procurement (for example, in the challenge to London Underground’s decision to award a £1.5 billion contract to Siemens for the manufacture of new underground trains).

Several of our current and former members have held, or currently hold, prominent positions with key bodies in the competition space, including the Competition Appeal Tribunal, the Court of Justice of the European Communities, and the competition law section of Canada’s Federal Department of Justice.

Our work includes cases relating to:

  • Advisory work relating to investigations into allegedly anti-competitive behaviour
  • Follow-on claims based on findings of anti-competitive behaviour
  • Standalone and other commercial claims relating to breaches of competition law

  • Various v Barclays Bank & Others: Advising defendant banks in potential “class action” collective proceedings before the Competition Appeal Tribunal, sought to be brought on behalf of a wide class of persons who entered into certain types of FX transactions with the defendant banking groups. The various proceedings are some of the first collective actions to be brought since changes were made to the Competition Act 1998 by the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
  • Paccar Inc & Others v Road Haulage Association Ltd & Another (Association of Litigation Funders of England & Wales intervening): Acting for the DAF Truck parties in an appeal from the Competition Appeal Tribunal concerning the validity of the litigation funding agreements used in the claim. The case arose out of follow-on damages claims brought by the Road Haulage Association on the basis of the European Commission’s decision that five major European truck manufacturing groups had carried out a single continuous infringement of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, by exchanging information on their future gross prices.
  • Deutsche Bank v Unitech: Representing a syndicate of lenders in high-profile proceedings against an Indian property development company about whether the mechanism for the setting of LIBOR involved an unlawful information exchange between banks for the purposes of European and UK competition law.
  • Team Y&R Holdings Hong Kong Ltd v Ghossoub: Acting in relation to an antisuit injunction regarding the sale of a business and an unfair prejudice petition.
  • The Office of Fair Trading v Abbey National & Others: Acting for various parties in the long-running competition and banking dispute, heard in the Supreme Court, concerning the legality of bank charges. Members of Fountain Court acted for the OFT, Barclays Bank, Lloyds TSB, HSBC and HBOS.
  • Deutsche Bahn AG v Morgan Crucible: Acting in a dispute relating to the application of limitation periods under section 47A of the Competition Act 1998.
  • GMI Construction Holdings Plc v OFT; AH Willis & Sons Ltd v OFT; North Midland Construction Plc v OFT: Acting in three appeals arising out of the decision of the OFT regarding cover pricing in the construction industry.
  • British Telecommunications Plc v OFCOM: Acting in an appeal of a decision from OFCOM under the dispute resolution process under the Communications Act 2003 regarding the nature and effect of certain 'significant market power' conditions imposed on BT.
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Competition Barristers

David Railton QC

David Railton KC

Call 1979 | Silk 1996

Charles Bear QC

Charles Béar KC

Call 1986 | Silk 2003

Mark Simpson QC

Mark Simpson KC

Call 1992 | Silk 2008

Richard Handyside QC

Richard Handyside KC

Call 1993 | Silk 2009

Derrick Dale QC

Derrick Dale KC

Call 1990 | Silk 2010

Akhil Shah QC

Akhil Shah KC

Call 1990 | Silk 2010

Clare Sibson KC

Call 1997 | Silk 2016

Rosalind Phelps QC

Rosalind Phelps KC

Call 1998 | Silk 2016

Ben Lynch QC

Ben Lynch KC

Call 2001 | Silk 2020

Alexander Milner QC

Alexander Milner KC

Call 2006 | Silk 2022

Simon Atrill

Simon Atrill KC

Call 2005 | Silk 2023

Deepak Nambisan

Call 1998

Richard Power

Call 2007

Tetyana Nesterchuk

Tetyana Nesterchuk

Call 2011

Niamh Cleary

Niamh Cleary

Call 2012

Alexandra Whelan

Alexandra Whelan

Call 2016

Gillian Hughes

Gillian Hughes

Call 2018

Francesca Ruddy

Call 2020

Daniel Schwennicke

Daniel Schwennicke

Call 2020

Hannah Bernstein

Hannah Bernstein

Call 2020

Ian Simester

Call 2022

Tiffany Tang

Call 2022

Leah Gardner

Call 2022

Victoria Green

Call 2022

Brian Doctor QC

Brian Doctor KC

Call 1991 | Silk 1999

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Contact our clerks

For more information on our experience or to discuss a particular case, please contact us.

Call:    +44 (0)207 583 3335
Email: clerks@fountaincourt.co.uk

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