Celebrating 25 Years Of The Competition Act: Reflections, Achievements, and Future Challenges

Sir John Vickers has been Warden of All Souls College since October 2008.  He studied PPE at Oxford University, where, after a period working in the oil industry, he taught economics and was Drummond Professor of Political Economy from 1991 to 2008. He was Chief Economist at the Bank of England and a member of the Monetary Policy Committee 1998-2000; Director General/Chairman of the Office of Fair Trading 2000-05; President of the Royal Economic Society 2007-10; Chair of the Independent Commission on Banking 2010-11; and President of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (2018-2020).  His research interests, which combine theory and policy, mainly concern competition and regulation.  

Ann began her career in the Government Economic Service and worked in what was the Department of Trade and Industry before she moved to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). She worked as an economic adviser on a range of OFT work including mergers, markets, anti-competitive agreements and financial services before moving into a more delivery focused leadership role. She was appointed as the Senior Director Antitrust at the CMA from 1 April 2014. Since then, Ann has led the majority of the CMA’s abuse of dominance cases – including numerous cases in the pharmaceutical sector - and those involving vertical agreements, in particular RPM.  Her current portfolio is focused on digital cases and she is also leading the CMA’s work on sustainability. 

Jon is the top-ranked UK King’s Counsel in The Legal 500’s European and Competition category and has for a number of years been the Chambers directory “Star Performer” (sole or jointly). He is also ranked as a leading counsel in the fields of Telecommunications and Administrative and Public law. He sits part-time as a deputy high court judge.

His range and skillset are formidable. He is at home in stringent cross-examination in a trial setting, in advancing legal arguments before appellate courts including the UK Supreme Court, and in appearing in the European Courts. He is qualified at the Bar of Ireland as well as the Bar of England and Wales, and is a member of the New York Bar.

Nicole Kar is global co-chair of the Antitrust Practice. She advises on global merger investigations from an antitrust and foreign investment standpoint and has led over 40 significant merger reviews before the UK and European authorities; as well as advising on cartel, abuse of dominance and consumer law investigations and consequential litigation, particularly in the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal; compliance issues; and self-reporting to financial and other regulators.

Nicole has significant experience advising private equity houses and financial sponsors on a range of competition law issues, in particular in relation to liability flowing from portfolio companies and investments.

Adrian Majumdar is the Managing Partner at RBB Economics. He has 30 years’ experience assessing competition matters and was formerly the Acting Chief Economist at the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), a predecessor of the UK Competition and Markets Authority.

Adrian is referenced in Who’s Who as “an undisputable leader in the field” and “one of the absolute best” when it comes to complex investigations work. He was the Who’s Who “Competition Economist of the Year” in both 2021 and 2022.

Working on competition matters since 1995, Adrian has a wealth of experience covering horizontal and non-horizontal mergers, litigation matters, abuse cases, vertical agreements, cartels, market investigations, regulation, and compliance advice.

Adrian has provided expert testimony for many clients and has been cross examined and participated in ‘hot tubs’ before the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal, the International Dispute Resolution Centre, and other courts.

Adrian has also advised on some of the leading competition law cases in Europe, including Intel (for AMD) and Post Danmark II, as well as numerous high profile Phase II mergers before the European Commission and national competition authorities around the world, notably the UK.

Adrian has published on nearly all aspects of competition economics, including co-authoring the textbook UK Merger Control, and reports for competition authorities on cost-pass through, selective price cuts and fidelity rebates, buying groups, savings from competition policy, and modern models of collusion. He has also published on innovation, FRAND, and digital markets.

While at the OFT, Adrian was the principal author of the Competition Act guidelines on Market Definition and the Assessment of Market Power.

Adrian is a co-founder of the King’s College London Postgraduate Diploma in Economics for Competition Law, attended by staff from several competition authorities and other practitioners. He is also on the Advisory Board of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) Competition Law Forum, as well as a non-governmental advisor for the UK to the International Competition Network. Adrian has acted as an expert for the OECD on competition matters.

Adrian’s regulatory experience includes time at the Civil Aviation Authority, where he was involved in the setting of price caps and devising appropriate investment incentives for regulated airports. He has also advised on promoting competition in the telecoms sector.

Adrian completed his undergraduate studies at Cambridge University and his PhD at the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia.

Marc is the Head of the FCA’s Competition Enforcement and Financial Analysis Department, leading the FCA’s competition enforcement work and overseeing the contribution of the Financial Analysis team to cross-FCA work. Marc is an experienced competition lawyer who has led and worked on a number of complex civil and criminal investigations and policy work streams. Prior to joining the FCA in November 2017, Marc worked at the Competition & Markets Authority and its predecessor the Office of Fair Trading for over 15 years, holding a number of policy, legal and enforcement roles.  

Juliette was appointed interim Executive Director for Competition Enforcement at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on 26 March 2024. 

Juliette is a member of the senior executive team and is an adviser to the Board.  She leads the Competition Enforcement function with the aim of tackling unlawful and damaging anti-competitive conduct for the benefit of people, businesses and the wider economy. 

Previous career highlights include: 

Senior Director, Cartels (CMA, previously Director) 

Senior Director, State Aid (CMA) 

Lawyer in private practice

Andrea is a Senior Partner in the London office and Head of Keystone's practice in Europe. He is a leading European expert in antitrust and competition economics. His focus is on advising companies and government bodies on merger reviews, antitrust, litigation and regulation with a special focus on the digital economy.

Prior to Keystone, Andrea was the CEO of the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for six years until July 2022. He has over twenty-five years of competition economics experience and was awarded a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for services to Competitive Markets in the 2020 New Year Honours. He led the CMA between 2016 and 2022 during a period of significant growth following the UK exit from the EU. Under his leadership, the agency built pioneering data and technology capabilities, now being adopted by other leading agencies, and worked on many high-profile global mergers and antitrust cases involving digital businesses. Before joining the CMA as an executive board member in 2013, Andrea was a Director of Competition Economics at Ofcom (UK Media and Telecom regulator) and a Partner in the London office of Charles River Associates.

David Parker advises companies facing competition investigations in relation to agreements, abuses of dominance, market studies and investigations and mergers across national and supranational jurisdictions and in relation to state aid, across a wide range of sectors. 

Mr. Parker has been involved in many of the highest-profile merger and abuse of dominance cases in Europe, including Meta/Kustomer, Meta/GIPHY, Tesco/Booker, Just Eat/Hungryhouse and Whistl vs Royal Mail. He has acted for investigated parties on market investigations, covering sectors such as groceries, retail banking, retail energy, movies, local bus services, aggregates/cement/ready-mix concrete, private healthcare and investment consulting. 

Peter Freeman CBE, KC (hon) was, from 2013 until recently, a Chairman of the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal and a Board Member of the Competition Service. He is now a Senior Adviser to the Tribunal. From 2005-2011 he was Chairman of the UK Competition Commission, having been a Deputy Chairman since 2003. Prior to that he practised for 30 years at the international law firm Simmons & Simmons, 25 of them as a partner, managing the Commercial Department and heading the EC and Competition Law practice group. From 2011-2013 he was Senior Consultant to the international law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. He is a member of the Lloyds Enforcement Appeal Tribunal Panel, and a non-executive Board Member of the Single Source Regulations Office (SSRO).