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• Practice Areas
  • Cost of Capital
  • Competition Policy
  • Economic Regulation
  • Litigation Support, Dispute Resolution
  • Impact Assessment and Policy Evaluation

Litigation Support, Dispute Resolution

Economists can assist in disputes and consultations in a number of ways.  Even when it has been established who has been responsible for various actions, there can remain the question of the impacts of those behaviours.  Were prices affected?  Were consumers or potential consumers deterred?  Was profitability reduced or increased?  Was the process of competition affected, was the impact restricted to existing competition, or were potential new entrants or innovations deterred (or encouraged)?  Was regulatory best practice followed?

In such cases it is useful to have economists serving in an advocacy capacity, helping to develop lines of economic reasoning that favour the case argued.  In other contexts it will be more appropriate for economists to serve as independent expert witnesses serving the court or competition authority.

Clients and Past Projects

Much of our experience referenced in other pages will be of close relevance to litigation support.  Knowledge of competition economics, impact assessment, and cost of capital analysis (to name but three) will very often be involved in such cases
Specific examples where we have acted with lawyers or appeared before competition authorities include:

• for Ofwat, in Bristol Water’s appeal to the Competition Commission (2010);
• for Eircom, in contesting before the Irish High Court a ruling by ComReg on the pricing of shared lines (2010);
• for Japan Tobacco International, in its seeking of a judicial review of the decision to impose restrictions on the display of tobacco products (2010);
• for the Civil Aviation Authority, in the Competition Commission’s review of its price control decision for the London airports (2008);
• for Ranbaxy, in the alleged generic pharmaceuticals cartel cases (in association with Norton Rose) - 2005.

Our Experts

Our in-house expert team in this field includes Andrew Lilico, Dermot Glynn, Iona McCall, and Pau Salsas. 

Primary contacts: Andrew Lilico, Dermot Glynn