No Smoke Without Fire? Was the CAT right to quash the OFT decision on the alleged tobacco price fixing conspiracy?

(by Bruce Lyons) On 16^th April 2010, the OFT imposed a record total fine of £225m on two tobacco companies and ten retailers who they decided had engaged in practices that breached competition law.  The heart of the case was around ‘parity and differential requirements’ (PDR) of the form that, say, Imperial Tobacco requires that the retailer should not price Imperial’s brand A more than 3 pence higher than Gallagher’s brand B.  Rather loosely, I call this ‘price matching’ for ease of exposition but it should be taken to include ‘restoring price differentials’.  Earlier this week, the Competition Appeals Tribunal threw out the case in a decision that will see the OFT repaying the fine and paying huge costs.  Even more importantly, what does it mean for the enforcement of antitrust policy in the UK?