The UK Tobacco Case: Restrictions by Object in Vertical Agreements

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The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) adopted a broad interpretation of what constitutes a restriction by object in its Tobacco decision, relying on the European Court of Justice's (ECJ's) judgment in T-Mobile Netherlands. The decision was annulled by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) on appeal as the OFT was not able to put forward sufficient evidence to support the findings of infringement set out in its Decision. The CAT's ruling has been handed down at a critical time as the UK government is in the process of making its final decision on a number of aspects of UK competition law reform, including whether to require the UK competition authority to prosecute antitrust cases before the CAT.