Judgment of the Tribunal in an appeal by British Telecommunications plc (“BT”), pursuant to section 192(1)(e) of the Communications Act 2003 (the “2003 Act”), from a costs order dated 8 July 2016 made by the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) pursuant to section 193A of the 2003 Act (the “Costs Order”). The Costs Order was made in respect of the CMA’s costs incurred in connection with the reference to it of price control matters in BT’s appeal in Case No. 1238/3/3/2015.
By its appeal, BT sought, inter alia, a reduction in the amounts of the costs to be recovered from it by the CMA on the following grounds:
• Ground 1: In deciding, as a starting point, to seek to recover all of its costs, the CMA inappropriately failed to consider whether all of those costs had been reasonably and/or proportionately incurred and, as a consequence, included in the Costs Order costs that were not reasonably and/or proportionately incurred.
• Ground 2: Further or alternatively, the CMA erred in failing properly to identify the costs it had incurred in connection with the reference in BT’s price control appeal specifically and, as a consequence, wrongly included certain costs in the Costs Order against BT.
For the reasons given in the Judgment, and save in relation to the sums which the CMA had agreed to repay, and a sum in relation to Counsel’s fees, the Tribunal dismissed BT’s appeal from the Costs Order.