I’m a dissatisfied customer in a fairly unusual market …the market for opinion polls

(by Chris Hanretty) I’m more an end-user rather than a customer: I don’t buy opinion polls, but rely on a number of polling companies to publish their results which are (typically) commissioned by national newspapers or other media outlets.

This market has recently suffered a clamorous and highly visible failure. Most polls before the 2015 UK general election suggested that approximately equal proportions of people intended to vote for the Conservative and Labour parties respectively. In the end, the Conservatives finished six and a half percentage points ahead.

Given the size of this failure — and CCP’s obvious interest in competition and troubled markets — it’s reasonable to ask whether the polling industry’s failure is evidence of a broader failure in the market for public opinion research.

What could repeal of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 mean for the application of competition law and the English NHS?

(By Mary Guy) In view of the significant opposition to the competition provisions of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (HSCA 2012), it is unsurprising that several parties are explicitly proposing repeal in their 2015 UK election manifestos. Repeal of the HSCA 2012 appears to offer a neat shorthand for dis-applying competition law with regard to the English NHS. But how do the competition provisions of the HSCA 2012 relate to the application of competition law, and what would repealing them actually achieve? This blog post explores these two questions by specific reference to s.72 HSCA 2012, so “competition law” is defined as the anticompetitive agreements and abuse of dominance provisions.[1]

Collective actions after the Consumer Rights Act 2015

(by Sebastian Peyer) On 30 March 2015 the Consumer Rights Act 2015 received Royal assent, introducing opt-out collective actions into UK competition law enforcement.[1] The UK system of private enforcement has long being criticised for being ineffective in compensating small businesses and consumers. The new opt-out procedures is hoped to encourage victims of anticompetitive conduct to seek redress in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). It mainly implements the changes suggested by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skill (BIS) that had consulted on options for reform in 2012. Opt-out collective or class actions are one mechanism to aggregate small individual claims. The success of class action rules depends on whether they provide enough incentives for representatives and law firms to bring these complex and costly legal actions. The general rules on litigation funding in the UK and the restrictions introduced with the Consumer Rights Act 2015 may make it difficult to raise funds to bring collective redress claims in the CAT.