Antitrust 🤝 artwork
It’s not every day a judge picks up the virtual paintbrush — but Sir Marcus Smith has done just that, adding his own colourful diagram to a hefty legal ruling.
The meaty case in question featured no less than five KCs instructed by firms including Linklaters, Jones Day, Milbank, and Stephenson Harwood. Over almost 280 pages — including three diagrams — the CAT panel ruled unanimously on technical points of law.
Two diagrams, of a more corporate flavour, were submitted by parties to the case. The third, however, was how Sir Marcus Smith J interpreted the situation. Annex 3 at page 222, highlights what is titled “The Tribunal Diagram”:
Notice how the contractual relations are all helpfully expressed by rich colour-coding.
Paragraph 19 provides a little explanation. In response to suggestions Sir Marcus Smith J had dreamt up an approach “not argued by the parties”, the judge cited the diagram as evidence that he had, in fact, been paying very close attention.
At paragraph 255(6) he added, “My concern to understand the operation of the market was evident throughout the hearing (specifically, in the diagram at Annex 3, that was regularly under consideration during the trial).”
There’s a certain vibrancy to the diagram not seen in other efforts littered through the annex, which are more mundane in manner.
Aidan Robertson KC, described by his set Brick Court Chambers as “a leading silk” in competition law, highlighted the unusual annex on LinkedIn. There, Robertson described the drawing as “unprecedented… (so far as I am aware).”
In the comments, one observer noted that Sir Marcus Smith, who was previously a silk at Fountain Court, has a habit of introducing novel touches in his judgments. In another competition case, he included an economic analysis of why free market economies have firms, complete with references to seventeenth-century joint-stock companies.
However, Sir Marcus Smith is not the only judge to bring creativity into legal rulings. Legal Cheek has previously reported on a judge who used emojis to help children understand a family law judgment. More recently, an American judge included a gumbo recipe in the footnotes of a ruling involving Trump’s legal battles with law firms.
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