BAA has won an appeal against an order by the Competition Commission to sell three of its seven airports.
In March this year, the Competition Commission recommended that BAA sell off Stansted and one Scottish airport, so that it would no longer have a monopoly.
The Competition Appeal Tribunal agreed that the Commission’s ruling panel was affected by an “apparent bias”. BAA had argued that Professor Peter Moizer, a member of the panel, had connections with potential purchasers of the airport assets to be divested by the group.
However, the panel did not uphold BAA’s argument that the Commission failed to take account of material considerations relating to the impact of divestiture of BAA
The judgement said: “BAA had not demonstrated that the commission had failed to take account of relevant considerations when deciding upon the timescale for the divestments in question.”
BAA said further discussions would now take place with the Commission.