The Implications of Brexit for Competition Law – An Irish Perspective
Dr Vincent Power, Partner at A&L Goodbody, has published a paper which examines, from an Irish perspective, the implications of Brexit on competition law.
Vincent's paper highlights that given the importance of the UK for Irish trade, in the absence of special Brexit arrangements, there would be fewer Irish cases which would trigger the requisite "effect on trade between Member States" test and thereby not be subject to EU competition law (e.g., the Magill litigation).
Equally, he finds that fewer Irish-originating cases would have sufficient EU turnover (because UK turnover would ordinarily no longer qualify under the Merger Control Regulation as EU turnover) and therefore fewer Irish deals would benefit from the EU's merger control regulation and one-stop shop.
The paper also covers issues such as legal professional privilege, private enforcement, immunity as well as the growing divergence between UK and Irish competition law (which are already different but which will diverge even further).
This article was first published by the Irish Journal of European Law (Volume 20, Issue 1).
Date published: 02 January 2018