A pro bono scheme set up to provide free competition law advice to individuals and small businesses has caught the attention of the European Commission (EC).
More than 35 City and national firms, including CMS Cameron McKenna, Pinsent Masons, Ashurst, Baker & McKenzie, Taylor Wessing, Simmons & Simmons, Reed Smith Richards Butler and Macfarlanes, as well as two sets of chambers, now participate in the project, which originally saw 21 firms club together to form the group in October 2006.
The scheme is organised by Watson Farley & Williams, whose competition head Stephen Tupper spoke to the EC at the end of last year.
He told Legal Week: “It ought to be seen as a revolutionary concept. We are trying to take care of the growing gulf between what can be done by regulators such as the Office of Fair Trading and what can be done in court.”
Tupper launched the scheme in an attempt to provide an independent no-cost source of specialist advice to individuals or businesses with competition law issues. Its progress was reviewed last October after it received its 100th relevant enquiry.
Sir Christopher Bellamy, Linklaters competition consultant and former chairman of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, said the group could plug a gap in the market. He commented: “It comes under the subject of how new legal proceedings in the competition field are to be funded.
“Part of the problem is that the regulator hesitates to intervene in smaller cases and bigger companies can look after themselves - small cases, however, make big law.”