Portrait of Joseph Bell

Joseph Bell Partner
He/Him

Joseph is one of Oxera’s expert advisers in the field of competition litigation. He heads Oxera’s Follow-on Damages practice in the UK, with a focus on collective actions and cartel damages. He has a particular specialism in matters that require the application of empirical analysis, such as econometrics, to assess underlying competition issues or harms. Able to work across jurisdictions, Joseph has led projects providing evidence to competition authorities (including the CMA and the European Commission) and national courts in the UK and the Netherlands.

One of Joseph’s noted skills is making complex economics concepts practical, relevant and clear, and he has experience of providing expert testimony in the UK and to the European Commission. He regularly contributes to Oxera’s EU-sponsored courses on the quantification of competition damages for member state judges.

Providing advice across a wide range of industry sectors, Joseph has particular experience working in the fields of payments services and telecoms. Prior to joining Oxera, Joseph worked for four years in BT Group’s finance division, where he received his accountancy training and conducted an econometric research project at the Bank of England.

Tel: +44 (0) 1865 253056

Joseph's specialisms include:

Selected
professional experience

  • Litigation support to a UK transmission/distribution network operator in evaluating the damages resulting from a European cartel in the power cables market (2020–)

  • Litigation support to an auto manufacturer in relation to damages resulting from the roll-on, roll-off (‘RoRo’) cartel (2020)

  • Economic advice to European truck original equipment manufacturers in defending cartel claims in multiple European jurisdictions (2018–)

  • Competition advice to a UK funeral services provider with respect to a CMA market study, including evaluation of the competition risk of different business models (2018)

  • Advice to the Post Office in its acquisition of bill payments provider, Payzone, cleared by the CMA at phase one (2018)

  • Providing a range of expert and claim quantification advice to a number of claimant law firms and funders in the preliminary stages of collective competition litigation (2017–)

Selected
publications

  • Bell, J. and Shah, K. (2016), ‘New Economic Questions in opt-out collective actions’, Competition Law Journal, 15:163

  • Noble, R., Bell, J. and Shah, K. (2017), ‘Class actions: the mobility scooters case’, Competition Law Journal, 16:3, pp. 221–230

  • Bell, J. and Shah, K. (2020), ‘Aggregate damages: why the whole might not be the sum of the parts’, Competition Law Journal, 19:2

  • Oxera’s written evidence to the Brexit Competition Law Working Group and House of Lords concerning the impact of Brexit on private enforcement in the UK

Qualifications

  • MPhil Economic Research, University of Cambridge, UK

  • Graduate Diploma in Economics, University of Cambridge, UK

  • Associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)

  • MSci Natural Sciences (Physics), University of Durham, UK


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Courses

Using economics in competition cases

How can economics tools support me in competition cases? For more than 20 years, our training course has helped participants gain the confidence to judge and rely on economic arguments and evidence put forward in a case. Previous attendees have included practitioners, in-house lawyers faced with an inquiry, and senior… Read More

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