Practical Competition/Antitrust Law Issues and Brexit Matthew Hall Solicitor (England & Wales/Republic of Ireland), Brussels Bar (E List) Vice Chair, ABA Section of Antitrust Law, International Committee McGuireWoods LLP Brussels, Belgium
[email protected] ABA Section of Antitrust Law Spring Meeting February 2017 1 Practical Competition/Antitrust Law Issues and Brexit Following the “Brexit” referendum vote in June 2016, the exact timing of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (EU), not to mention the form it will take, remains unknown. However, the outline of the final position is reasonably certain. Brexit will be a so-called “hard Brexit” and the UK is likely to have left the EU by March 2019. “Hard Brexit” means that the UK will not be a member of the EU’s Single Market and will not be a European Economic Area (EEA1) Member State. It will be outside the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the EU’s highest court. The level playing field for business within the EU/EEA, including EU competition/antitrust law2, will no longer apply to/in the UK. It will also be outside the EU Customs Union3. Companies operating in or trading into the UK should be, and many are, actively carrying out a risk identification and assessment exercise. This is essentially an audit, which needs to consider both broad structural issues (the scope and location of a business) and its operations and activities (contracts, trading and the like). It allows a company to identify the steps which it should be taking now (pre-Brexit4) and might take in the future both to protect its business and to take advantage of the undoubted business opportunities which arise in the UK and the rest of the EU.