The Supreme Court decision of 28 July 2011 in Hegarty
resolved a number of complex legal issues, but at the heart of the
case is the continuing trend of Irish judges to interpret
legislation in a manner which ensures the effective enforcement of
competition law. It is this aspect of the case which will be
examined in more detail below following a brief summary of the
case.
The principal issue was the interpretation of a provision of Irish
competition law which provides that an individual who is a key
decision maker in an "undertaking" can be
prosecuted and convicted of a cartel offence as well as the
undertaking itself. The principal issue in this case was that, for
technical reasons, the undertaking was not first prosecuted for a
cartel offence and the question arose as to whether the individual,
Mr Pat Hegarty, could be prosecuted as the offence relating to the
individual provided that it must first be established that an
offence had been committed by the
