Regulatory Policy and Reform

Market Analysis has unrivalled expertise and experience in the privatised and deregulated utility industries, in the UK and abroad. We have carried out numerous assignments for the UK regulators, incumbent firms and new entrants in a number of the regulated industries including telecommunications, gas, rail and electricity, and have worked extensively on competition, pricing and interconnection issues in these industries.

Electricity Privatisation and Regulation

Market Analysis has extensive academic and consulting experience in the recently liberalised and decentralised electricity industries, particularly in the UK, Scandinavia, Australia and Europe. We undertook a comparative analysis of the electricity reforms in England and Wales and Norway, and have prepared reports for the Australian and Finnish governments and the World Bank on pricing and competition issues in electricity markets.

As economic advisers on electricity reform to the New South Wales Treasury and the Industry Commission of Australia, Market Analysis examined the potential for the abuse of market power in the new Australian electricity market and considered the regulatory options, including the break-up of Pacific Power. Our report was instrumental in determining government policy.

We also completed a study for the Electricity Reform Task Force of New South Wales analysing the regulatory issues involved in the introduction of retail competition in the New South Wales electricity market. Again, our report was a key determinant of government regulatory policy.

More recently, we advised British Energy on its response to the UK energy regulator's proposed market abuse condition to be applied to UK generating companies, and prepared a report for submission to the Competition Commission. We also submitted expert testimony to the Spanish Competition Court on the proposed Endesa/Iberdrola merger in the Spanish electricity market, and advised the Brazilian electricity company Cemig on the design of power contract auctions.

Market Analysis' expertise in the competitive analysis of decentralised electricity markets is unrivalled. In their academic work, David Harbord and Nils-Henrik von der Fehr have published numerous articles analysing the performance of electricity wholesale, contract and capacity investment markets. Their widely-cited 1993 Economic Journal paper was the first to apply insights from auction theory to the study of decentralised electricity markets. Their research is now focused on a comparison of alternative designs for electricity auctions.

Telecommunications and Media

Our client list includes a large number of the UK's major telecommunications and media companies. We have prepared expert analysis for the Competition Commission's inquiry into telephone number portability in the UK telecommunications market and advised on the reviews of British Telecom's price cap and network charges. We acted as economic advisers to the UK's OLO Group consisting of more than 30 licensed telephony operators on the implementation of the Fair Trading Condition in British Telecom's operating licence.

We have provided expert advice to Cable and Wireless and Telewest Communications in the UK Competition Commission's two investigations into mobile phone pricing; to ITV and Telewest in the Office of Fair Trading's Competition Act investigation into BSkyB; represented the BBC and ITV in OFTEL's review of conditional access pricing in pay television; advised ITV and NTL on the FA Premier League's sale of television broadcasting rights; and ITV on Channel 3 licence auctions.

We currently advise Orange UK on its margin squeeze complaint against British Telecom in the UK broadband market, and Hutchison 3G UK on regulatory and competition policy issues in mobile telephony. Market Analysis has also worked on telecommunications regulatory issues in Australia and Scandinavia and has recently advised the Polish Office of Telecommunications and Post Regulation and 2 Degrees New Zealand on the economics of mobile termination rates.

Gas Market Regulation

We completed a study entitled The Introduction of Competition in the Domestic Gas Market and the 1997 Price Cap Review, for OFGAS as part of the project Regulatory Review of the Domestic Gas Market, in collaboration with Arthur Andersen Business Consulting. Many of our proposals for regulatory reform were subsequently adopted by OFGAS. We have also prepared submissions for two major energy companies concerning British Gas's take-or-pay contracts and the operation of the liberalised UK gas market.