Clause 16 - Damages
Enterprise Bill
3:00 pm
Miss Melanie Johnson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry; Welwyn Hatfield, Labour)
First, clauses 16 and 17 are concerned with damages claims, so they can be grouped coherently together. Clause 15, however, belongs more appropriately with part 2, which we have not yet reached. If the hon. Member for Huntingdon reflected further on that, he would understand that that is the simple reason behind the current focus on clause 16.
The amendment would give the Competition Appeal Tribunal the power to grant injunctive
relief—the power to make directions in the context of damages claims made before it. Such a power is unnecessary. When a damages claim is made before the tribunal, the issue of whether an infringement of competition law has taken place will already have been decided either by the OFT or the tribunal itself on appeal from the OFT. In taking decisions on infringements of competition law, the OFT or the tribunal will have full powers to grant injunctive relief in the form of directions. Additionally, the OFT will have the power to grant interim relief while it is still investigating a possible infringement and the tribunal to grant interim relief while it is still hearing an appeal.
If an appeal were made against a decision of the OFT that an agreement does not infringe the chapter 1 prohibition, the tribunal could make an interim order preventing the parties to the agreement from implementing it. If it is upheld, the CAT could make a final direction requiring the parties to modify or terminate the agreement. All such issues will have been decided before a damages claim is made, so any appropriate injunctions will already be in place. The power is not needed at the stage when the tribunal is hearing or deciding on a claim for damages. In a damages case, the only powers that the CAT needs are the power to award the damages and the power to award costs. On no occasion would an extension of the injunctive powers of the CAT to cover damages cases be required. Therefore, I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment and ask the Committee to support me in opposing it.