This paper discusses the development of vulnerability policy in essential services in the UK, the position at present and what the future holds.

The promotion of consumer alternative dispute resolution (ADR) has been a consistent policy of the UK Government and appears to be well used. This article addresses two issues. The first is institutional arrangements for consumer ADR policy. The second is the availability of information about the performance of consumer ADR schemes. The argument is that the current institutional arrangements are flawed and that although there is some useful information publicly available to assess the performance of consumer ADR as a whole, it is not easily accessible and has not been used very much. Until these matters are addressed, it is not possible to evaluate the performance of consumer ADR properly and to develop appropriate policies. Keywords: consumer; alternative dispute resolution; Ombudsman; information; complaints.

This chapter focuses on consumer disputes in the county court, primarily through the small claims procedure, and through one of the many existing forms of consumer alternative dispute resolution (ADR). It discusses what is meant by access to justice to provide a conceptual framework to assess developments in civil justice and ADR. A party to the case may also ask for the proceedings to be stayed while they attempt to settle the case or use ADR. The research focused on consumers who used either the court system or ADR to seek redress, as opposed to looking at consumers who were defendants. ADR systems for dealing with consumer disputes are, however, a relatively recent creation. In terms of procedural fairness, ADR systems stand up reasonably well, if measured against consumer satisfaction indicators. The future for consumer disputes lies in ADR, rather than the courts.

This article examines the new approach to vulnerability developed by Ofgem and the Financial Conduct Authority to see whether it has been implemented at company level and had an impact on the ombudsman. It sets out the context within which this approach has been developed and then looks at its implementation through two case studies. The main lesson from these case studies is that establishing a broad concept of vulnerability, as has been argued for in the academic literature, is just a first step. Operationalising the concept presents major challenges especially in the context of systems dealing with large numbers of consumers.

This paper is a survey of the various devices in the United Kingdom which exist to address collective problems. The following areas are examined: the consumer landscape in the United Kingdom: the role of the Competition and Markets Authority, consumer bodies and trading standards; sector regulators and consumer redress; class actions generally and in competition law specifically; and class or multi-party actions in Alternative Dispute Resolution schemes, both public and private. The chapter argues that, although there are a number of interesting and effective devices for addressing collective consumer problems in the United Kingdom, they do not form a coherent system.

A major reform was implemented by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, extending concurrent powers to the financial services sector and the National Health Service.The reform led to more enforcement activity as well as to greater contacts, seemingly more information flows, greater understanding, and perhaps more trust between the agencies.

The file associated with this record is under a 3 month embargo from publication in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. The full text may be available through the publisher links provided above.

This report examines how four regulators of essential services are addressing consumer vulnerability, namely, Ofcom, Ofgem, Ofwat and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The aim of this action research was to explore the regulators’ approaches to consumer vulnerability and how these have developed given the different contexts in which they operate, what they are seeking to do and the issues they face, with the aim of learning from their different experiences. The intention was not to seek to rate their performance. Instead the objective was to see what lessons can be shared and policies developed. The statutory frameworks for three of the regulators – Ofcom, Ofgem, and Ofwat – list certain ‘categories’ of consumers for whom they have to have regard, for example, older people and people with disabilities, with the underlying implication that these are vulnerable ‘groups’. Our research shows that these regulators, together with the FCA, are moving away from categorising consumers in this way towards a more rounded understanding of consumer vulnerability. While the regulators have carried out work over the years on issues that affect consumers in vulnerable circumstances, until recently this has been fairly limited and ad hoc but they are now seeking to develop more strategic approaches to consumer vulnerability. Given the different contexts within which they operate, this is happening in different ways and at different stages across the regulators. The first manifestation of a more rounded approach has been Ofgem’s adoption of a detailed consumer vulnerability strategy and accompanying work programme. Ofcom has recently published its approach to participation and consumer vulnerability with a dedicated section of its website. Ofwat and the FCA, by contrast, are at earlier stages in terms of developing an overarching approach to vulnerability issues. Ofwat is considering adopting a consumer vulnerability strategy and is prioritising considerations around affordability, particularly through the current price review process. The FCA, a relatively new organisation with a new remit and responsibilities, has begun developing a vulnerability strategy, and is only beginning to pull all the strands of its work together as an approach to consumers in vulnerable circumstances. During the course of this research all the regulators expressed the desire to share learning and collaborate where possible on this important topic. These developments are very welcome but the critical issue is what happens in practice. The regulators must ensure that: • They make it clear what they have done, what they are doing and what they plan to do to engage and tackle consumer vulnerability. • Tackling consumer vulnerability underpins the work of the whole organisation, including their approaches to competition and economic issues such as cost reflectivity. • Their strategies are backed by clear work programmes and systems to monitor the effects for consumers of their actions and of developments in the market. • They are ready to intervene to use their powers to the maximum to protect consumers in vulnerable circumstances. • They develop close contacts with organisations working with consumers in vulnerable circumstances and involve them in monitoring the effectiveness of their efforts. Although it is challenging, it is vital that the regulators have a firm basis to operationalise their approaches to consumer vulnerability. These findings underline the importance of organisational commitment and backing at senior level combined with effective internal processes. Other crucial ingredients include having a sound evidence base, supported by rounded consumer research to ensure that the regulators stay fully in touch with the factors that place consumers at risk in these essential services. Regulators should set a series of outputs and outcomes to help evaluate the effectiveness of their attempts to tackle consumer vulnerability and regularly report on progress. To this end the regulators should establish a means of ‘external auditing’ to help inform and evaluate their progress. This could be done through development of external ‘challenge groups’, for each regulator or jointly, which involve organisations and experts working with consumers in vulnerable circumstances. This should be underpinned by a clear mechanism so that external input is taken on board and seen to be so. This should not be a one-off exercise but one that becomes an integral part of the regulators’ consumer vulnerability policies and monitoring. So, for example, the challenge groups would have a role in helping to set outputs and outcomes.

This paper was delivered at the Fourth ACELG Annual Conference on “Ten Years of Decentralized EU Competition Law Enforcement: Success or Failure?” on 14 November 2014, University of Amsterdam. The paper examines the early debates over concurrency and what were the initial expectations, sets out the legal arrangements that were put into place and describes the enforcement record of the sector regulators or, more accurately, the lack of enforcement activity. From here, the paper goes on to discuss possible reasons for this and sets the record in the context of the enforcement activities of the Office of Fair Trading and the role of the Competition Appeal Tribunal. The third part of the paper looks at the recent reforms introduced by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 which, among other objectives, seeks to rejuvenate the enforcement of competition law by sector regulators. Finally, the paper attempts an overall assessment of the UK experience and looks at the possible impact of future developments on the current arrangements.

How to work out whether or not an agreement has the object of restricting competition contrary to art. 101(1) TFEU is a difficult and important question. In Allianz Hungaria, the Court of Justice seems to propose a new approach which would blur the distinction between agreements with the object and those with the effect of restricting competition by allowing a broader inquiry into the factual context of the former than has been usual. On one interpretation, this could lead to a wide ranging re-evaluation of the case law while, alternatively, it could lead to a new category of agreements with the object of restricting competition which will require more analysis before a decision is made. This comment argues that such an approach is not supported by the previous case law and, although superficially attractive, would result in less legal certainty and, paradoxically, less enforcement.

Competition policy as a cattle market* As part of a package of consultation documents relating to the new Competition and Markets Authority (CAM), BIS has published its view of the strategic…

Re thinking the de minimis rules* In the light of Case C-226/11 Expedia, judgment of 13 December 2012, the European Commission is consulting on a revision of the de minimis Notice. This is a…

This article examines the application of competition law and policy in the UK retail banking sector from 2000 to the present. It focuses on the control of mergers between banks, attempts by the competition authorities to improve the conditions of competition and recent developments following the report of the Independent Commission on Banking. It argues that the traditional arrangements and understandings regarding the banking industry in the UK have broken down but it is as yet unclear what will replace them. Although the competition authorities have attempted to improve the competitive conditions of retail markets, progress has been limited, in part because of market structure issues. The problem for the competition authorities has also been that important decisions are not within their control and that, in some significant cases, the government has taken decisions contrary to their advice.

This articles discusses a number of constitutional issues arising out of the Coalition's Programme for government in the UK. It examines the issue of elections to the House of Commons and a fixed-term Parliament, which leads to a second issue, namely, reform of the House of Lords, Parliament's secondchamber. It then looks at the relationship between the UK and Europe, in the shape of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights. A final section looks at changes in relation to devolution, both planned and speculative. A major theme is that the recent constitutionalchanges in the UK, both those in the past and those that are currently being considered, are not part of an over-arching programme of constitutional reform based on some set of coherent principles. Understandable though this is in the context of a Coalition government, it remains a major problem.

(2012). The Reform of UK Competition Policy. European Competition Journal: Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 539-562.

This paper examines the trends in complaints against telecommunications providers in Australia and the UK. It discusses why complaint handling is important to consumers and then looks at the published available information on complaints in Australia and the UK. Having discussed the number of complaints, it examines the high level principles that internal complaint handling mechanisms ought to be designed around. It concludes that the number of complaints in Australia is exceptionally high and that this seems to be part of a wider issue about complaints handling and customer service in telecommunications in both countries, as well as raising questions about the regulatory arrangements in Australia.