Every year, Global Competition Review (GCR) publishes a series of reports offering detailed information to agencies and practitioners engaged in antitrust and competition work throughout the world. The 2020 edition of the review focused on Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) includes an economics overview written by Analysis Group Managing Principal Joshua White, who is based in the firm’s London office.
In their article, the authors consider the use of economics and econometrics in the context of assessing antitrust damages. They focus on the recent decision by the High Court of England and Wales in BritNed Development v ABB, the first cartel follow-on damages claim to reach judgment on the merits in the UK. In this case, the claimant’s and defendant’s economic experts applied differing empirical methodologies to estimate damages: BritNed’s expert relied on regression analysis to estimate the level of the overcharge, while ABB’s expert largely avoided econometrics. In this case, the Court found the non-econometric approach more reliable, which the authors note serves to highlight the importance of ensuring that any econometric evidence is rooted in the facts and data of the case, that it is clearly set out in an intuitive fashion, and that key limitations are highlighted and addressed.
“Economics: Overview” is an extract from GCR’s Europe, Middle East and Africa Antitrust Review 2020, first published in July 2019.
Associated People
Joshua White
Mr White is a consulting and testifying economist who specialises in applying microeconomics and sophisticated econometric modelling to complex litigation and merger-related questions, primarily in matters involving the health care, financial services and technology industries. He has supported clients in various jurisdictions and industries in follow-on competition damages litigation, assessing overcharge, upstream and downstream pass-on and volume effects. He has served as a testifying expert in the UK Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber), the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal and the Amsterdam District Court on competition cases.
Mr White has supported high-profile companies with complex merger reviews across multiple jurisdictions, including in the Veolia/Suez, LVMH/Tiffany, Sika/MBCC and Eutelsat/OneWeb mergers. He has also provided evidence to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the European Commission (EC), including on behalf of clients involved in cartel investigations, abuse of dominance investigations and mergers. Mr White has also provided support to European financial and competition regulators in coordinated conduct investigations.
Mr White has extensive experience addressing competition and intellectual property (IP) issues in matters related to cutting-edge pharmaceutical products and FRAND licensing questions. As part of this work, he has supported a number of scientific and technical experts in front of courts and regulatory bodies. He also regularly supports pharmaceutical clients on competition issues around market access, pricing, denigration and competition from generic manufacturers.
Mr White has worked in a number of jurisdictions, including the UK, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Belgium and the US. His writing has been published in an array of journals, including the Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, the Competition Law Journal and the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement, and he regularly speaks at international competition law and policy conferences.