one of two
thresholds has to be met: the value of UK turnover of the enterprise acquired/to be
acquired exceeds £70 million (the turnover test); or the share of goods/services in the
UK or a large part of the UK that is/will be held by the merged enterprise is at least 25
per cent (the share of supply test).
In a further development, the European Commission has recently (May 2004) adopted aregulation which gives the national competition authorities and courts additional responsibility
for the application of Articles 81 and 82 (the two basic ‘prohibitions’) referred to
above. In essence, the Office of Fair Trading and the sectoral regulators now have the power
to enforce the EC competition rules and, as a consequence, the Competition Act 1998 has
been amended to bring it in line with the new European system