The Competition Act 1998 (Determination of Turnover for Penalties) Order 2000

Citation and commencement

1.—(1) This Order may be cited as the Competition Act 1998 (Determination of Turnover for Penalties) Order 2000 and shall come into force on 1st March 2000.

Interpretation

2.—(1) In this Order:

“the Act” means the Competition Act 1998;

“applicable turnover” means the turnover of an undertaking for a business year determined in accordance with the Schedule to this Order; and where a business year does not equal 12 months the applicable turnover shall be the amount which bears the same proportion to the applicable turnover during that business year as 12 months does to that period;

“business year” means a period of more than six months in respect of which an undertaking publishes accounts or, if no such accounts have been published for the period, prepares accounts;

“length of the infringement” means the period in a decision made under section 36 of the Act during which an undertaking is determined to have infringed the Chapter I or the Chapter II prohibition, and the “date when the infringement ended” means the end of that period.

Determination of turnover for the purposes of section 36(8)

3.  The turnover of an undertaking for the purposes of section 36(8) is:

(1) the applicable turnover for the business year preceding the date when the infringement ended;

(2) where the length of the infringement is more than 12 months, in addition the amount of the applicable turnover for the business year preceding that identified under paragraph (1) which bears the same proportion to the applicable turnover for that business year as the period by which the length of infringement exceeds 12 months bears to 12 months; and

(3) where the length of the infringement is more than 24 months, in addition the amount of the applicable turnover for the business year preceding that identified under paragraph (2) which bears the same proportion to the applicable turnover for that business year as the period by which the length of infringement exceeds 24 months bears to 12 months;

save that the amount added under paragraph (2) or (3) shall not exceed the amount of the applicable turnover for the preceding business year in question.

4.  Where in the application of article 3 there is any period in respect of which there is no preceding business year then the applicable turnover shall be the turnover for that period.