Changing of the guard: Sir Peter Roth replaces Sir Marcus Smith in the Competition Appeal Tribunal
As Sir Marcus Smith steps down as President of the CAT, we examine the data behind the judges and review Sir Peter Roth’s CAT judgment history.
In early October, Sir Marcus Smith announced that he would step down from the presidency of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). Former CAT President Sir Peter Roth took over as acting president on November 4th until a permanent replacement is appointed.
Solomonic data shows that Marcus Smith J delivered 76 judgments at the CAT, including 11 trial judgments. Among these were several notable antitrust damages cases, including the high-profile Sainsbury’s v Mastercard (1241/5/7/15). His final judgment before stepping down was an interim decision in Adur District Council & others v Traton SE and others (1431/5/7/22 [T]). It involved a section of the claimants who failed in their application for permission to appeal a decision not to grant summary judgment or strike out part of the defence related to the ‘mitigation of overcharge arguments’.
Marcus Smith J was the lead judge in the Merricks litigation, involving Mastercard and Visa, as well as the Merchant Interchange Fee Umbrella Proceedings. The pass-on trial is underway and scheduled to run for six weeks, now led by Roth J. Marcus Smith J was also listed as lead judge in the class action against major water companies over sewage dumping, led by Professor Carolyn Roberts. Roth J has already taken over here as well, presiding in a recent three-day hearing to determine if the case will proceed to trial. If approved, this would allow claims to advance to trial to assess whether water companies have been overcharging customers.
According to Solomonic data, Roth J has presided over 99 CAT judgments, including seven trial judgments, with a variety of outcomes: 28.6% outright success, 28.6% outright failure and 42.9% partial success. Marcus Smith J’s rulings reflected a similar pattern, with a slightly higher outright success rate of 36.4%. This contrasts with the higher failure rate of 65.1% seen with other CAT judges.
Sir Peter Roth’s previous CAT rulings -
Judgments in favour of claimants:
Socrates Training Ltd v The Law Society of England and Wales [2017] CAT 10
J Sainsbury Plc and Asda Group Ltd v Competition and Markets Authority [2019] CAT 1
Partially successful judgments in favour of claimants:
British Telecommunications Plc and others v Office of Communications [2014] CAT 14
Lebedev Holdings Ltd and another v Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport [2019] CAT 21
Generics UK Ltd and others v Competition and Markets Authority [2021] CAT 9
Unsuccessful judgments against claimants:
Groupe Eurotunnel SA and another v Competition and Markets Authority [2015] CAT 1
Ecolab Inc v Competition and Markets Authority [2020] CAT 12
Solomonic provides similar analysis for any judge in the High Court or CAT, essential data for trial preparation. You can also gain insights into time to judgment, volumes of appeals and their success rates and judges’ comments on barristers and expert witnesses. If you would like to learn more about our market leading analytics platform, please get in touch with us at info@solomonic.co.uk for a confidential introduction to the platform or secure a demo today.
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