{"id":1776,"date":"2016-10-19T20:46:16","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T20:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/?p=1776"},"modified":"2016-10-19T20:57:15","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T20:57:15","slug":"now-its-the-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/now-its-the-lawyers\/","title":{"rendered":"Now it&#8217;s the lawyers!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On 15 September 2016, the Council of the Spanish NCA (\u2018CNMC\u2019) adopted two decisions fining the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnmc.es\/es-es\/competencia\/buscadorde\/resoluciones.aspx?num=SAMAD%2f09%2f2013+I&amp;ambito=Sancionadores+CCAA&amp;b=ICAM&amp;p=0&amp;ambitos=Concentraciones,Recursos,Sancionadores+CCAA,Sancionadores+Ley+30,Vigilancia,Medidas+cautelares,Conductas&amp;estado=0&amp;sector=0&amp;av=0\">Madrid Bar Association (ICAM)<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnmc.es\/es-es\/competencia\/buscadorde\/resoluciones.aspx?num=SAMAD%2f09%2f2013+II&amp;ambito=Sancionadores+CCAA&amp;b=ICAM&amp;p=1&amp;ambitos=Concentraciones,Recursos,Sancionadores+CCAA,Sancionadores+Ley+30,Vigilancia,Medidas+cautelares,Conductas&amp;estado=0&amp;sector=0&amp;av=0\">Alcal\u00e1 de Henares Bar Association (ICAAH)<\/a>, respectively. The CNMC again raises a recurrent but not undisputed subject-matter: are the \u2018criteria\u2019 for professional fees adopted by Bar Associations legal? The CNMC denied that they were, even though it was a controversial subject, as one may infer from the dissenting opinion of Counsellor F. Torremocha.<\/p>\n<p>This is particularly hot news considering that last June the CNMC also published the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnmc.es\/es-es\/competencia\/buscadorde\/expedientes.aspx?num=S%2fDC%2f0587%2f16&amp;ambito=Conductas&amp;b=bankia&amp;p=1&amp;ambitos=Concentraciones,Recursos,Sancionadores+CCAA,Sancionadores+Ley+30,Vigilancia,Medidas+cautelares,Conductas&amp;estado=0&amp;sector=0&amp;av=0\">opening of formal proceedings against several bar associations<\/a> in Spain (Case S\/DC\/0587\/16). As the topic allows for much debate, we will simply highlight here some questions that do raise serious conceptual doubts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><u>Competence<\/u>: the decisions against ICAM and ICAAH go back to a file investigated by the Competition Service of the Madrid Region and subsequently decided by the CNMC, as foreseen under the collaboration agreement between both authorities. Conversely, the CNMC directly opened Case <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnmc.es\/es-es\/competencia\/buscadorde\/expedientes.aspx?num=S%2fDC%2f0587%2f16&amp;ambito=Conductas&amp;b=bankia&amp;p=1&amp;ambitos=Concentraciones,Recursos,Sancionadores+CCAA,Sancionadores+Ley+30,Vigilancia,Medidas+cautelares,Conductas&amp;estado=0&amp;sector=0&amp;av=0\">S\/DC\/0587\/16<\/a> without providing for any role to be played by regional competition authority. It is perhaps too soon to draw conclusions. However, it is surprising that that the CNMC should have opened these new proceedings, since up to now a professional association was dealt with by the regional competition authority in whose territory such association was active.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><u>\u2018Scales\u2019 vs. \u2018criteria\u2019<\/u>: the two fining decisions emphasise that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnmc.es\/Portals\/0\/Ficheros\/Promocion\/Informes_y_Estudios_Sectoriales\/2012\/Informe%20Colegios%20Profesionales%20tras%20Directiva%20de%20Servicios.pdf\">CNC had already warned<\/a> that it saw a need for a semantic distinction between setting (i) scales for professional fees, i.e., price lists; and (ii) criteria for professional fees, i.e., a range of concepts that any lawyer should take into account when freely pricing their services. In tyeh CNMC\u2019s own view this distinction is fundamental to correctly interpret the <a href=\"http:\/\/noticias.juridicas.com\/base_datos\/Admin\/l2-1974.html\">4<sup>th<\/sup> Additional Provision of the Professional Associations Act<\/a>, which provides for an exception to the general prohibition on fixing professional fees. In its two new decisions, CNMC maintains this position and fines the two Bars accordingly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The CNMC\u2019s reading raises, we find, two conceptual issues: one, of what use the 4<sup>th<\/sup> Additional Provision of the Professional Associations Act might be; and two, why someone felt it was necessary to create an \u2018exception\u2019 to the general prohibition just to allow for \u2018criteria\u2019 as defined by the CNMC when these cannot possibly be objectionable from a competition law perspective. There might be a semantic difference, but we wonder if, in the context of an appeal about a lawyer\u2019s fees \u2013 where the discussion is precisely about the exact price to be charged \u2013 it is extremely useful for the judge if the Bar points at a bunch of generalities such as the difficulty of the case, workload, technical complexity, etc. Moreover, the judge will presumably be much more familiar with these features of the case than the Bar. In other words, even if the words are different (scales vs. criteria) we very much doubt that the legislator\u2019s true intention when adopting the 4<sup>th<\/sup> Additional Provision of the Professional Associations Act was simply to ask the Bar to ramble about \u2018criteria\u2019 within the meaning that the CNMC gives to this term.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><u>For\/against publication<\/u>: the CNMC seems to attach particular importance to publication of \u2018criteria\u2019 or \u2018scales\u2019 and to whether they were publicly available. Again, we miss the practical perspective. What can possibly tell a citizen that professional fees are reasonable \u2013 those of the opposite party, needless to say, since that citizen will have negotiated their own lawyer\u2019s fees beforehand? We must bear in mind that we are talking about appeals concerning professional fees and that such appeals \u2013 let us be clear, because this is what the law is all about \u2013 are about the exact amount of professional fees due and not about an array of generalities that are completely useless both for citizens and the courts. How on earth is a Bar Association, when asked by a court, to state a reasonable level of fees without quoting a figure?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To be continued\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 15 September 2016, the Council of the Spanish NCA (\u2018CNMC\u2019) adopted two decisions fining the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM) and the Alcal\u00e1 de Henares Bar Association (ICAAH), respectively. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categoria-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1777,"href":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776\/revisions\/1777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ratinglegis.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}