Judgment (Due Process)

This Judgment concludes that the appeals against the findings of Cartel Infringement in the Hydrocortisone Decision succeed; and that the provisional findings in the Judgment (Cartel Infringements) [2023] CAT 57 upholding those findings cannot stand. This is because of a failure, on the part of the CMA, to put the adverse findings in the Hydrocortisone Decision in regard to the Cartel Infringements to two witnesses who had been expressly called, by the Appellants, to refute those very findings of Cartel Infringement. This failure of due process fatally undermines the conclusion, otherwise open to the Tribunal (and the basis for the provisional findings in the Judgment (Cartel Infringements)) that there was sufficient material to uphold the Hydrocortisone Decision when considering (in substance) the documentary evidence alone.