Competition Appeal Tribunal

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) of the United Kingdom was created by Section 12 and Schedule 2 to the Enterprise Act 2002 which came into force on 1 April 2003. The Competition Service is an executive non-departmental public body which was created as a support body for the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

Functions

The current functions of the CAT are:

Cases

Online Hotel Booking

In March 2014, the price comparison site, Skyscanner, brought a case to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT),[1] challenging a January 2014 decision by the UK’s antitrust authority - then known as the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) - to settle a probe over pricing of hotel rooms online. The OFT's decision had been to accept commitments from a number of online travel agents (OTAs) and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG).[2] Skyscanner appealed against the OFT's successor, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), because it believed its business would be affected by the settlement, even though it wasn’t targeted by the investigation. Skyscanner's case was supported by a smaller online travel agent, Skoosh, which had triggered the OFT's original investigation.[3] In a judgement handed down in September 2014, the Competition Appeal Tribunal quashed the Office of Fair Trading’s decision to accept commitments in the online hotel booking sector and the matter was reverted to the CMA for reconsideration.[4]

References

  1. http://www.catribunal.org.uk/237-8431/1226-2-12-14-Skyscanner-Limited.html
  2. "Practical Law". uk.practicallaw.com. Retrieved 2016-02-08.
  3. correspondent, Simon Gompertz Personal finance; News, B. B. C. "OFT launches investigation into online hotel room sales". BBC News. Retrieved 2016-02-08.
  4. Jones, Tristan. "Skyscanner: CAT quashes commitments in the online booking sector". Competition Bulletin. Retrieved 2016-02-08.

External links


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