United Kingdom competition law

[Bibio]

i was under the impression that no insurance company could have a monopolization on services in the EU.. am i wrong?

[punyXpress]

Only if it's UK ?

[Bibio]

yup its the uk

[littleoldman2]

It depends how they came to have the monopoly. If the competition withdrew their products due to lack of profit whilst in fair competition what can the government do.

[Bibio]

in Scotland we have such a thing as 'bond of caution'. by law we have to buy this via an insurance company. there are only two insurance companies that deal with this. royal sun alliance and zurich but only one of them will deal with the public (zurich). due to zurich being the only insurance company that will deal with private individuals and it being law that you need a bond of caution then i would say that its a monopoly. the way i see it if its law that you must have it and there is no competition then the law should be revoked.

to me this is like having only one car insurance company that the public can go to.

[Spank86]

There's a petition at the moment to have the law revoked so you wouldn't need one. There was an official law review 5 years ago that suggested it was utterly pointless and should be scrapped but as yet your Scottish Parliament haven't decided to do anything about it.

[Bibio]

i dont think its pointless having the bond but i do think that if the law society wants this law then they should make other arrangements or take it out the hands of insurance companies and regulate the solicitors on behalf of the public. a fixed one off fee paid to the courts would be sufficient for a fund purse to be raised like the uninsured drivers fund.

[shiftin_gear98]

RSA........................


*******s!!


Sorry nothing to do with your post. Does sound unjust though.

[Spank86]

i dont think its pointless having the bond but i do think that if the law society wants this law then they should make other arrangements or take it out the hands of insurance companies and regulate the solicitors on behalf of the public. a fixed one off fee paid to the courts would be sufficient for a fund purse to be raised like the uninsured drivers fund.

Well, the review found that it was more or less pointless. I'm not going to search for it but they recommended just removing it same as it's been removed for spouses.

Balls in your parliaments court but they don't fancy tinkering,

[Bibio]

problem is like most parliaments.. they are run by lawyers turned politicians.

[EssexDave]

No problem with having a monopoly. The issue is with 'abuse of a dominant position' which requires a monopoly (for collusive behaviour the law is slightly different).

Having a monopoly by itself is not a breach of UK/EU competition law (which are essentially one and the same thing).

See Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union Articles 101 and 102, and sections 2 and 18 of the Competition Act 1998.

The sort of behaviour that would be caught by section 18 of the Competition Act (abuse of a dominant position) would include raising prices because there is no competition or putting in other unfair terms into the contract, or applying different conditions to essentially the same contracts for no reason other than 'you can' (i.e., there is nowhere else for you to go so you take it or you're stuffed).

Generally these things are quite difficult to investigate and so the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will only be concerned if the case is big enough.

You can complain to the CMA here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-anti-competitive-or-market-issues-to-the-cma but I wouldn't hold out too much hope.

[ClunkintheUK]

Surely, as well, there is relatively little barrier to entry, if say Aviva or one of the Lloyds of London insurance guys wanted to start offering it they could without much difficulty. The fact they don't indicates that it is not very profitable at current prices, which would imply that they are not abusing their dominant position.