Competition - parallel proceedings in High Court and complaint to Director-General of Fair Trading - court proceedings stayed pending appeal to Competition Commission Appeal Tribunal against director-general's refusal to investigateSynstar Computer Service (UK) Ltd v ICL (Sorbus) Ltd and Another: ChD (Mr Justice Lightman): 30 March 2001The claimant, alleging breaches of sections 2 and/or 18 of the Competition Act 1988, complained to the Director-General of Fair Trading and commenced parallel proceedings in the High Court.The director-general, having declined to investigate the complaint, the claimant proposed to appeal to the Competition Commission appeal tribunal.The defendants sought a stay of the court proceedings pending any appeal to the tribunal.

The claimant contended that such a stay should not take effect until after disclosure and the exchange of witness statements.Mark Brealey (instructed by Nabarro Nathanson, Reading) for the claimant.

Richard Fowler QC and George Peretz (instructed by Slaughter and May) for the defendants.Held, granting the application, that the practice where questions of EU competition law arose in parallel proceedings before domestic courts and the European Commission of staying the court proceedings to avoid the risk of inconsistent decisions (although not necessarily preventing the domestic court proceedings continuing to a point short of final determination) should be applied where there were parallel proceedings under the Competition Act 1998; that the court would only allow the completion of disclosure and the exchange of witness statements before granting a stay if the overriding objective of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 required it, and the duplication of cost and effort in both sets of proceedings meant that that would ordinarily not be the case; that the tribunal's powers to order disclosure were as extensive as the court's and it was for the claimant to apply to the tribunal if it required leeway in relation to the evidence required by the tribunal in support of any appeal; that it was not for the court to affect or pre-empt case management decisions which the tribunal was perfectly competent to make on its own; and that, accordingly, there would be an immediate stay of the court proceedings.