Based on yesterday’s RPI figure for July, regulated rail fares in England will rise by 6.2% on average. Oxera discussed this issue in an Agenda article last year, when the RPI + 3 fares policy was first expected to be used to set regulated fares in January 2012. Ultimately the policy was revised back to the previous position of RPI + 1 in last November’s Autumn Statement. Read More
Oxera acted as expert economic advisers assisting South Staffordshire Water and its legal advisers, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, during the Competition Commission (CC) inquiry into the merger with Cambridge Water. This is the first time that the CC has cleared a water merger without any undertakings since the Enterprise Act came into force in 2002. Read More
On July 5th, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) issued a judgment in 2 Travel Group Plc (In Liquidation) v Cardiff City Transport Services Limited. This was a ‘follow-on’ damages claim based on a finding by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) in 2008 that Cardiff Bus had engaged in anti-competitive practices against 2 Travel, an entrant into the market for local bus services in Cardiff. Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil has today published Oxera’s study on the costs and benefits of changing the competitive structure of the market for trading and post-trading services in Brazil. Read More
The Department for Transport (DfT) has published a new rail demand forecasting framework developed by Oxera and Arup. This framework was commissioned by the DfT, Transport Scotland and the Passenger Demand Forecasting Council. Read More
ComReg, the Irish communications regulator, has published an Oxera report together with its consultation assessing the pricing principles and methodologies relating to eircom’s next-generation access (NGA) products. Read More
Oxera is delighted to welcome back Felipe Flórez Duncan to lead its Communications team. Felipe originally joined Oxera in 2005, specialising in competition and regulatory economics in the telecommunications and postal sectors. He rejoins Oxera from BT, where he was a Senior Regulatory Economist. Read More
In its Retail Market Review, Ofgem is proposing significant regulatory intervention in the domestic energy supply market. The tariff simplification component of these proposals represents a considerable departure from the existing market arrangements, with the stated intention of promoting competition and protecting consumers. Read More
To support a consultation with transport providers in the aviation and rail sectors, the Office of Transport Regulation of the NMa, the Netherlands Competition Authority, commissioned a report from Oxera on the concept of buyer power in regulated transport sectors. Read More
The achievements of Oxera’s competition practice were today rewarded with an impressive number of nominations for the GCR Awards 2012. Hosted by the Global Competition Review (GCR), these awards aim to recognise the achievements of teams and individuals from private practice firms, academic organisations and competition authorities in 2011. These nominations follow Oxera’s recent ranking as one of the top 20 competition economics firms worldwide in GCR’s ‘The Economics 20’ annual survey. Oxera is proud to have been commended for the work of its experts, both on an individual basis and as members of larger teams working on nominated cases. Read More