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| Reform of the UK
Competition Regime
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The
Enterprise
Act received Royal Assent on 7 November 2002.
The Act includes reforms to merger
and monopoly regimes with decisions taken by independent competition
authorities, new duties for OFT to promote competition, and criminal
penalties for those involved in cartels.
 White
Paper
The Bill measures were contained in the White Paper
"Productivity and Enterprise: A World Class Competition
Regime", which was published on 31 July 2001.
Productivity
and Enterprise: A World Class Competition Regime 
Welsh language summary
Accompanying press release.
The July 2001 competition regime White
Paper was foreshadowed by a joint DTI/Treasury document "Productivity
in the UK: Enterprise and the Productivity Challenge",
published on 18 June 2001.
21st December 2001 - the
Government published its response
to the July 2001 consultation on reform to the UK competition regime
.
18 September 2002 - the
Government published consultation documents on two elements of the
Enterprise Bill which will be dealt with by Statutory Instrument:
- The Competition Appeal Tribunal
Rules
Consultation
document
Annex - Draft Statutory Instruments
- The proposed maximum penalties
for failure to comply with the Competition Commission's requests
for information
Consultation
document (97Kb).
28 January
2003
- the Government published a consultation on certain technical
Statutory Instruments under the Enterprise Act covering: merger
fees; turnover; use of land; ECMR cases; and mergers in stages. The
deadline
for response was 28
February 2003.
The
consultation documents are on our Consultations
page.
Competition Act 1998 EC
Modernisation
Regulation 1/2003
(the ‘modernisation’ Regulation), which was adopted in November
2002 and comes into force on 1 May 2004, replaces Regulation 17/62
and radically reforms the framework of European competition law.
Contact
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