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The CAT?s whiskers

By scott

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has re-launched its website. [For those outside of the UK, the CAT is a specialist judicial body whose function is to hear and decide cases involving competition or economic regulatory issues.] The old version of the site was hit by a javascript malware infection in May/June, which caused the site to be down for over a month before a bare bones site re-appeared with the latest judgments. The re-launched site comes with a nice new look. It is very clean, organised, and easy to navigate and use. Unlike the PhonepayPlus site, which I was/am not a fan of, this is excellent. Well done all at the CAT. There are some new features launched with the new site, which are well worth mentioning:

 1) The ability to conduct keyword searching within all documents on the website by means of the search box in the top right-hand corner of each page.

 2) Additionally, if you are searching within Judgments you can also narrow you search by the use of a selection of Keywords, divided into Procedural, Competition, and Communication.

Procedural

Administrative procedure

Admissibility

Amendment

Burden/ Standard of proof

CC reference

Claims for damages

Confidentiality

Costs

Disclosure

ECJ reference

Evidence

Hearings/ Case management conferences

Human Rights

Interest

Interim payment

Interim relief

Intervention

Joinder of parties

Jurisdiction

Limitation

Location of proceedings

Permission to appeal

Permission to make claim for damages

Pleadings

Power to reject

Preliminary issues

Remittal

Security for costs

Service

Skeleton arguments

Staying proceedings

Strike out

Summary judgment

Time

Withdrawal/ Disposal

Competition

Abuse

Anti-competitive agreements

Bundling

Collective selling

Commitments

Concerted practices

Cross subsidy

Directions to end infringement

Discrimination

Dominance

Excessive pricing

Exchange of information

Exclusionary conduct

Exemption

Effect on trade

Hold separate measures

Leniency

Margin squeeze

Market investigations

Mergers

Objective justification

Penalty

Predation

Professional rules

Public interest issues

Refusal to supply

Relevant market

Rules of reason

Structural remedies

Substantial lessening of competition

Tendering

Undertaking

Communications

Carrier pre-selection

Conditional access/ access control

Countervailing buyer power

Disputes

Electronic programme guide

General conditions

Interconnection

Mobile call termination

Number portability

Price control matters

Public mobile operator licenses

Save activity 

Significant market power

Spectrum

Universal service

Wireless telegraphy legislation.

3) You can now sort case results/ judgments by case type and other criteria including:

Year

The Legislative provision the case relates to: Competition Act 1998 (Sections 46, 47, 47A, 47B); Communications Act 2003 ( Section 192) or Enterprise Act (Sections 120, 179)

Respondent/Defendant: OFT, OFGEM, OFCOM, Water Services Regulatory Authority, ORR, Northern Ireland Authority for Utility Regulation, Private Party, Competition Commission, Specified Body, Secretary of State, Competition Commission/Secretary of State.

4) Brief summaries of judgments are now provided. For Example: In the Appeal by BskyB and Virgin Media against its decision in the ITV stake case the summary is this:

Ruling of the Tribunal setting out its reasons for (i) refusing Sky?s application for permission to appeal from the Tribunal?s judgment of 29 September 2008 ([2008] CAT 25), and (ii) refusing Virgin Media?s application for permission to appeal from the Tribunal?s judgment of 30 October 2008 ([2008] CAT 32). Both Sky?s and Virgin Media?s applications were refused on the basis that the grounds of appeal raised had no real prospect of success and there were no other compelling reasons to allow the appeals to go forward.

I’d personally prefer a little bit more detail in the summary, but this is still a nice addition to the functionality and helpfulness of the site.

5) RSS Feeds added for:

Latest Documents/Judgements Feed

http://www.catribunal.org.uk/239/Document-Archive.rss

CAT Diary Feed (Details on date of upcoming Case management conferences/hearings) http://www.catribunal.org.uk/241/Dairy.rss

All in all, a big thumbs up from me. This is an excellent example of how to take a site that was not very enjoyable to use, and turn into one that is a pleasure to use. Full marks all round.

Full post as published by Information Overload on December 15, 2008 (boomark / email).