HIGHLIGHTS:
- Extensive experience in competition damages claims, including collective actions before the UK courts and the Competition Appeal Tribunal, and other European courts
- Experience in sports disputes, including advising individuals, athletes and officials
- Regularly publishes on competition matters
- Professional proficiency in Spanish
BIO:
James Hain-Cole specialises in competition damages litigation. With extensive experience advising on multijurisdictional antitrust matters, he advises corporate and individual clients on their potential to claim damages arising from anticompetitive conduct and works with them to design an effective strategy to compensate them for losses arising from such conduct. This experience extends to both individual claims and collective actions before the United Kingdom’s courts and tribunals. He also has experience in sports and commercial arbitration, as well as general commercial litigation.
Prior to working with Scott+Scott, Mr. Hain-Cole spent two and a half years at Cuatrecasas in Madrid, where he advised on competition damages claims before the courts of Spain, England and Italy. During his time there, he was part of the team that drafted the legal section of the Study on the Passing-on of Overcharges for the European Commission, which has been heavily referenced in the interchange fee proceedings before the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
Prior to that, Mr. Hain-Cole spent six years in the London office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, where he advised clients in some of the leading competition damages before the English courts and tribunals. He also acted for a major financial institution in competition law investigations before the European Commission and other competition regulators worldwide, including in North America and Asia.
REPRESENTATIVE CASES:
- Advising Clare Spottiswoode CBE in a collective action before the Competition Appeal Tribunal on behalf of British domestic electricity consumers arising from the Power Cables Cartel
- Advising Dr. Maria Luis Stasi in a collective action before the Competition Appeal Tribunal seeking damages for UK businesses and organisations for inflated licencing costs arising from abusive conduct by Microsoft in the cloud computing market
- Litigating multiple claims on behalf of retailers (including Vodafone, Hermès, GrandVision, Michelin, Dunelm, Soho House, and Grange Hotels) in their claims against Visa and Mastercard regarding anti-competitive interchange fees
- Acting for a professional boxer in sports arbitration proceedings with his former manager arising out of alleged breaches of the boxer-manager agreement
REPRESENTATIVE CASES AT PRIOR FIRMS:
- Deutsche Bahn AG and others v Morgan Advanced Materials Plc
- Cooper Tire and Rubber Company Europe Ltd and others v. Dow Deutschland Inc and others
- Represented various corporations in competition damages litigation – including in relation to the Paraffin Wax, Synthetic Rubber and Carbon and Graphite Products cartels – before the English courts and the Competition Appeal Tribunal
- Has advised a major financial institution in relation to the EURIBOR and LIBOR benchmark investigations before the major European, U.S. and Asian competition authorities