Some 6 months after issuing its infringement decision against GSK and a number of generic companies, the CMA has released a non-confidential version. This comes in at a weighty 717 pages.

Other than the grounds of appeal (on which we reported in the final paragraphs of this post), this is the first chance for companies and their advisors who weren’t involved in the proceedings to see the approach the CMA has taken, and to compare it with the current Commission approach. First impressions are that the CMA has closely aligned itself with the Commission’s patent settlement decisions, such as Lundbeck**. The CMA and the parties will therefore be particularly keen to see the General Court’s forthcoming judgment in that case – indeed, the case management directions set down by the Competition Appeal Tribunal in the appeal proceedings against the CMA’s decision require the parties to prepare submissions on the relevance of the GC’s judgment to the case.

For those who aren’t keen on such weighty holiday reading, but can’t stand the suspense, below are a few pointers to the parts of the CMA’s legal reasoning which may be worth dipping into:

• Paragraphs 1.3 – 1.20: A high level summary of the decision for those who only have an appetite for some light reading.
• Paragraphs 3.65 – 3.84: The CMA’s view of patents, expanded upon at paragraphs 6.19-6.22. The Windsurfing case law on the ‘public interest’ in removing ‘invalid patents’ is key: patents are treated as ‘probabilistic’ (although the term isn’t used) and are not guaranteed to be valid. Like the Commission, the CMA treats legal challenges to patent validity as part of the competitive process, and argues that the market is ‘in principle’ open to generic entry after expiry of patent protection over an API.
• Paragraphs 4.17 – 4.26: Overview of the market definition section which finds that, while other antidepressants may be substitutable for paroxetine, consumption patterns suggest that the actual competitive constraint is limited. For market definition geeks, the full analysis is at paragraphs 4.29 – 4.97. It is notable that paroxetine’s position within the ATC features only briefly, with the focus being on actual competitive constraints, including a ‘natural events’ analysis to look at the relative impact of generic entry in relation to the candidate competitor molecules (such as citalopram – the subject of the Lundbeck decision), and entry by generics of paroxetine itself (see para 4.73 in particular).
• Once the narrow market definition is established, there isn’t much suspense as to the dénouement of the dominance ‘chapter’ (paragraphs 4.98 – 4.127). In this context, the section on why the PPRS does not constrain pharmaceutical companies’ dominance is again unsurprising, but perhaps worth a read (paragraphs 4.124 – 4.126).
• Paragraphs 6.1 – 6.9 and 6.204 – 6.206 contain a summary and the conclusion of the ‘object assessment’ under Article 101/Chapter I: while generally Lundbeck-esque, the reference to “the effective transfer from GSK [to GUK/Alpharma] of profit margins” strikes me as a novel way of expressing an old idea.
• Paragraphs 7.1 – 7.3, 7.61 – 7.62 and 7.114 – 7.115 contain the summary and conclusions of the effects assessment under Article 101/Chapter I. Even though the agreements were actually operated in the market, the CMA has confined itself to looking at their ‘likely’ effects – presumably to try to account for the fact that the outcome of the discontinued litigation is unknowable. It also concludes that the agreements assisted GSK to “preserve its market power” (paragraphs 7.63 – 7.64 and 7.116 – 7.117).
• Leading on from that conclusion, paragraphs 8.1 – 8.3 summarise the case on abuse of a dominant position. Central to the abuse case is the concept of inducement by GSK. The allegations span not only the agreements in respect of which fines are issued under Article 101, but also an agreement with IVAX (for those with time on their hands, Annex M seeks to explain the discrepancy). GSK raised a number of objective justification arguments, notably around its right legitimately to defend its patent rights and to defend the company’s commercial position. Paragraphs 8.61 – 8.67 reject these arguments, in particular on the basis that the conduct was not ‘competition on the merits’ (as per AstraZeneca) and that the conduct “went beyond the legitimate exercise of its patent rights to oppose alleged infringements”.
• Finally, and again for the more technically minded, at paragraphs 10.43 – 10.53, the relevance of the Vertical Agreements Block Exemption is dismissed, on the basis that the agreements were between potential competitors rather than being true ‘vertical’ arrangements. At paragraphs 10.54 – 10.97, the parties’ Article 101(3) exemption arguments are also dismissed (spoiler alert: the exemption criteria are not found to have been fulfilled). One curiosity is the lack of an infringement decision in relation to the agreement between GSK and IVAX. This was held to benefit from the (now repealed) UK-specific Competition Act 1998 (Land and Vertical Agreements Exclusion) Order 2000 (now repealed). In other words, that agreement is treated as vertical, unlike those between GSK and each of the other generic companies, even though the decision recites that IVAX did have plans to launch its own paroxetine generic. The difference appears to be based on the context in which the agreements were reached: whereas the agreements with GUK and Alpharma related to the settlement (deferral) of litigation, that was not the case for the supply deal agreed with IVAX. This is addressed at paragraphs 10.36 – 10.47 and in Annex M.

The paragraphs listed above focus on the legal analysis. Those who prefer their reading less dry will want to look also at the descriptions of the agreements, and will note in particular that the ‘settlements’ considered in the decision did not finally resolve the litigation, but rather deferred it for the duration of the agreements entered into by GSK and the generic companies. Those who like tales of retribution will wish to read about the calculation of fines in section 11 – note that GSK received separate fines in relation to each of the agreements and the abuse of dominance.

The appeal hearing before the CAT is due to start next February, and to last for around a month. By that time, the General Court will have issued its rulings in the various appeals against the Commission’s Lundbeck decision – which will doubtless be another weighty read for the Autumn.

** For more on Lundbeck, please see here (the abridged version) or here (the full analysis).