Competition law—Breach of competition statute—Ex turpia causa non oritur actio

Queen’s Bench Division, Commercial Court Flaux J, 15 January 2010

A breach of the Competition Act 1998 (CA 1998) is sufficiently serious to engage the principle of ex turpi causa non oritur actio.

Robert Anderson QC and Tristan Jones (instructed by Wragge & Co LLP) for the claimants. Andrew Mitchell and David Murray (instructed by CMS Cameron McKenna LLP) for the first to seventh and ninth to eleventh defendants. Thomas Sharpe QC (instructed by Clifford Chance LLP) for the eighth defendant.

The claimant companies were all companies in the Safeway group, which was sold to Morrisons in 2004. The defendants were all former employees, in some cases directors, of the claimants. It was alleged that in 2002 and 2003, the claimants engaged in the repeated direct and indirect exchange of commercially sensitive retail pricing intentions with other large supermarket and dairy processors. The office of fair trading (OFT) alleged that the claimants