The British Horseracing Board v Office of Fair Trading, Court of Appeal - United Kingdom Competition Appeals Tribunal, February 08, 2006, [2006] CAT 1

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The British Horseracing Board v Office of Fair Trading, Court of Appeal - United Kingdom Competition Appeals Tribunal, February 08, 2006, [2006] CAT 1

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The British Horseracing Board v Office of Fair Trading [2006] CAT 1 (8 February 2006)

Case Nos: 1035/1/1/04

1041/2/1/04

IN THE COMPETITION APPEAL TRIBUNAL

Victoria House,

Bloomsbury Place,

London WC1A 2EB

8 February 2006

Before:

THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE RIMER

PROFESSOR ANDREW BAIN

MRS SHEILA HEWITT

Sitting as a Tribunal in England and Wales

BETWEEN:

THE RACECOURSE ASSOCIATION AND OTHERS

Appellants

and

OFFICE OF FAIR TRADING

Respondent

AND

THE BRITISH HORSERACING BOARD

Appellant

and

OFFICE OF FAIR TRADING

Respondent

Mr Christopher Vajda QC (instructed by Denton Wilde Sapte) and Mr Sam Szlezinger of that firm appeared for The Racecourse Association and its co-appellants

Mr David Vaughan QC and Miss Maya Lester (instructed by Addleshaw Goddard) appeared for the British Horseracing Board

Mr Rhodri Thompson QC and Mr Julian Gregory (instructed by the Solicitor to the Office of Fair Trading) appeared for the Office of Fair Trading

Heard at Victoria House on 1 November 2005

JUDGMENT ON COSTS

Introduction

1. We delivered our reserved judgment on the substantive appeals in these proceedings on 2 August 2005. We allowed the appeals of both (i) The Racecourse Association and its co-appellants (``the RCA appellants'') and (ii) the British Horseracing Board (``the BHB'') and set aside the decision dated 5 April 2004 of the Office of Fair Trading (``the OFT'') that the sale of certain media rights under a Media Rights Agreement dated 2 May 2001 (``the MRA'') infringed the Chapter I prohibition imposed by section 2 of the Competition Act 1998 (``the Act''). When we delivered our judgment, we adjourned argument on all questions of costs to a date to be fixed.

2. On 1 November 2005, we heard argument on applications by the RCA appellants and by the BHB for orders that the OFT should pay their respective costs of the two appeals. The OFT resisted the applications, although not totally. It accepted that it should pay at least 90% of the RCA appel...

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