James Harvey and Sam Williams have been listed in Who’s Who Legal’s 2022 Consulting Experts publication as global leaders in competition law economics.  Sam said: “we are delighted to be recognised by WWL, which reflects EI’s continued growth and extensive work in competition cases over the last year”.

Earlier this year, Economic Insight was commissioned by Severn Trent Water to develop a cost-benefit assessments tool to help with project proposal appraisal.

This tool is capable of calculating the monetary value for a number of benefits that may arise as a result of planned projects including, but not limited to: (i) benefits relating to improved biodiversity, water and air quality, and water purification, that can arise where projects result in a change in habitat; (ii) benefits relating to improved water supply and catchment resilience, where projects result in the abstraction of water; and (iii) the wide range of health benefits that result from the removal of lead from pipes.

These benefits are evaluated relative to the associated costs of implementing the project, including financial costs, risks and also carbon costs, to produce a range of social metrics, such as the social benefit-cost ratio (BCR), social return on investment (SROI), and net present social value (NPSV) over periods of 25 and 30 years.

Importantly, this tool has been developed in line with relevant guidance produced by the Environment Agency (regarding the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP)), Ofwat (regarding its PR24 methodology) and the government (via the Greenbook) and, as a result, is currently being used by Severn Trent to feed directly into its PR24 Business Plan submissions.

In order to provide an independent assessment of the key issues arising from Ofwat’s REC consultation, Economic Insight was commissioned by MOSL, the market operator for the non-household retail market in England.  Our report, which has now been published, set out (i) our overarching observations regarding the proposals under the REC consultation; (ii) a comparison of the NHH costs allowed under Ofwat’s proposals, relative to our prior analysis of actual costs incurred in the business retail market; and (iii) our observations regarding specific elements of Ofwat’s methodology under the REC consultation.

In summary, we are concerned that, under Ofwat’s proposals, NHH retailers will not be able to recover efficiently incurred costs (and that this problem may be especially acute for Group One customers) meaning that the scope for NHH retailers to earn sustainable returns will remain limited, as will the scope for competition to develop for smaller customers in the business retail market.

View report here

Economic Insight’s Associate Directors, Aastha Mantri and Ian Thompson, will be speaking at the upcoming Global Class Actions Symposium in Amsterdam on 17th November on the topics of funding international collective proceedings and competition claims. This event sees the coming together of international class actions specialists for two days of top-level discussion and debate on topics including:

– Collective actions against global technology giants.

– Will US-style consumer/product liability class actions develop in the EU and UK?

– The influence of government intervention and prosecution on class actions.

– The impact on class actions of the UN’s recognition of the human right to a clean environment.

View event details

Economic Insight is proud to be sponsoring the upcoming Beesley Lectures on Wednesday 5th October.  We are looking forward to hearing from David Black and Cathryn Ross about their perspectives on ‘PR24 and beyond: is the price review framework fit for purpose?’, which will explore issues such as climate change resilience and affordability of service provision.  One of our colleagues, Aastha Mantri, will be chairing the discussion.

More details about the lecture can be found here: https://marketforcelive.com/econolex/events/beesley-lecture-series/

We are looking forward to hearing from Economic Insight co-founder, Sam Williams, at the upcoming Westminster Forum conference at 11:35am on Friday 30th September.  Sam is speaking on ‘Market design priorities and responding to the PR24 draft methodology’ and will be discussing business models, affordability and delivering long term value for stakeholders.

The conference will be an opportunity for stakeholders to consider the issues alongside key policy officials who are due to attend from Ofwat; BEIS; CCC; Defra; Department for Finance, NI; the DIT; DLUHC; HM Treasury; and the DWI – as well as parliamentary press holders from both Houses of Parliament.

Event details here

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has allowed Mr Boyle to bring a class action against Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) for selling tickets that restrict passengers from travelling on all of GTR’s brands. Economic Insight developed the methodology for quantifying the damages on a class-wide basis, which the CAT regarded as “clear and comprehensible” and satisfied the so-called Microsoft requirements.

Read the CAT’s decision here

In July 2021, we were commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to undertake a research project into the economic impact of International Regulatory Cooperation (IRC) initiatives. We looked into 11 specific initiatives, across a wide range of sectors. Our research was twofold, involving: (i) a literature review; and (ii) interviews with stakeholders connected in different ways to the initiatives.

The report has now been published by BEIS and can be accessed here: Read Report