Judgment of the Tribunal following a certification hearing at which the Tribunal made a Collective Proceedings Order (“CPO”) and gave directions for the future conduct of the proceedings.
The claim is a ‘follow-on’ claim arising out of the European Commission’s (the infringement decision dated 2 April 2014 in Case AT.39610 Power Cables (the “Decision”). The Defendants are addressees of the Decision. The European Commission found that a number of companies including the Defendants operated a cartel in the market for the supply of various types of underground and submarine high voltage power cables contrary to Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (the “Cartel”). The European Commission found that the Cartel operated between 18 February 1999 and 28 January 2009.
The stated objective of the proceedings, which are proposed to take the form of “opt-out” collective proceedings, is to seek redress for loss caused by the Cartel to a defined “Class”, but which broadly consists of consumers of domestic electricity in Great Britain on or after 1 April 2001 with certain exceptions. The Proposed Class Representative’s (“PCR”) best estimate of the size of the Class is that it is likely to have in excess of 30 million members.
The Tribunal held:
(1) that it is just and reasonable for the PCR to act as a representative in the Collective Proceedings (section 47B(8)(b) of the Competition Act 1998 and Rule 78 of the Competition Appeal Tribunal Rules 2015);
(2) that the claims raise the same, similar or related issues of fact or law and are suitable to be brought in collective proceedings on an opt-out basis (section 47B(6) of the Competition Act 1998 and Rule 79 of the Competition Appeal Tribunal Rules 2015);
(3) that the methodology proposed by the PCR provides a “blueprint” of the way ahead to trial in accordance with the Pro-Sys test; and made a CPO.
