Eligibility is an economic question first
A registration journey asks a claimant a series of questions to establish whether they qualify. Every one of those questions sits downstream of an economic argument: what the market is, what the harm was, and who was exposed to it.
We design and operate the journey. We do not form the economic opinion that sets its boundary — and a participation team improvising one is a liability at certification, not an efficiency.
Build the register to the class definition. Not to a guess at it.
Four ways a register stops matching its class
Each of these is created at case design and discovered at certification, which is the worst possible order in which to find it.
Intake designed before the class was
Registration questions written while the class definition was still moving.
Criteria the data cannot evidence
A definition sound in economics and unprovable from what was actually collected.
Commonality under challenge
The class is attacked as too broad or too varied, and the register cannot show otherwise.
Methodology that arrives with the report
The data the model needs was never captured, because nobody asked for it at stage one.
Making sense of economic evidence
GMT Economics is a London competition economics practice founded in 2021 and led by Dr Claudio Calcagno, an economist who specialises in applying microeconomics to competition cases. He has worked as a professional economist since 2004, holding senior roles at leading economic consultancies before founding the firm.
He has advised on more than a hundred matters and appeared before the Competition and Markets Authority, UK sector regulators, the Competition Appeal Tribunal, the High Court of England and Wales and the European Commission, as well as competition authorities and courts across the EU and further afield. Lexology Index clients describe “impressive analytical economic skills allied to a high degree of commercial awareness”.
- Firm
- GMT Economics Ltd — competition economics, founded 2021
- Base
- London
- Principal
- Dr Claudio Calcagno, Founder & Director
- Role
- Competition economics: theory of harm, market and class definition, commonality, and economic methodology
- Collective actions
- UK collective proceedings arising from alleged abuse of dominance and anti-competitive agreements
- Before
- CMA · UK sector regulators · Competition Appeal Tribunal · High Court of England and Wales · European Commission
- Also covers
- Market studies and investigations, mergers, vertical and horizontal agreements, competition appeals, State aid
- Standing
- Published in peer-reviewed journals; co-author of a leading textbook on exclusionary practices; Lexology Index Client Choice Award 2025 for competition experts in England
- Working style
- Side by side with the case team, or a fresh pair of eyes on economics already prepared
- Reference
- gmt-economics.co.uk
Two columns. One case file.
The division of labour is deliberately clean. GMT Economics decides where the class boundary sits and why. We build the journey that finds people inside it and produces the evidence that they are.
Neither column reaches into the other. We do not opine on economics, and the economics is not adjusted to suit what is convenient to collect.
Participation infrastructure
The claimant, end to end.
- Class criteria translated into registration questions
- Screening and validation against the definition as written
- Evidence captured per claimant, to specification
- One claimant record for the life of the case
- Reporting on class composition and reach
Competition economics
The economic case, end to end.
- Theory of harm and market definition
- Class definition and commonality
- Economic methodology for damages
- Expert reports and evidence at certification
- Testimony before the Tribunal or the court
Fig. 01 — the join. Column B draws the boundary; column A builds to it and evidences it. The class definition is the only shared surface.
Stage by stage
The economics leads and the infrastructure follows — but the infrastructure has to say early what it can and cannot prove, or the definition is written against data that will never exist.
Stage 03 is the cheapest hour in the whole case.
One review of the registration journey against the class definition, before it goes live, prevents a register that cannot answer the question it was built to answer.
Case design Participation feasibility: who is reachable, through what channel, at what cost. Theory of harm, the relevant market, and the economic shape of the class.
Class definition A plain statement of what can be asked at intake and what can actually be evidenced. The class boundary and the commonality argument, in the words that will be filed.
Intake build Criteria become questions, screening rules and validation logic in the live journey. Review that the journey tests the definition it claims to test, before it goes live.
Certification Register evidence on composition, provenance and reach, produced in usable form. Expert report and economic evidence supporting the application.
Merits Continuing evidence capture at claimant level as the case develops. Methodology developed against the actual data rather than an assumed data set.
Quantum A validated book that matches the class as certified, claimant by claimant. Economic quantification, alongside the quantum partner where one is instructed.
A register that cannot evidence the class definition is a register the class definition cannot use.
Documents, not introductions
A joint engagement that produces nothing but a warm handshake is not worth publishing. These are the artefacts the joint engagement is designed to put on your desk.
The economic opinion is the expert’s, owed to the Tribunal. Nothing about this arrangement touches that.
An expert’s duty runs to the Tribunal or the court, not to the instructing firm and certainly not to us. Mediatasks takes the class definition as an input and reports honestly on what the register can and cannot evidence. We do not comment on the economics, and no part of this arrangement gives us reason to.
Earliest of all the entries
The partner register sits above the operating modes, not inside one. Whichever configuration of the Participation Operating System™ a matter runs on, the economics discipline attaches the same way.
It is the entry that pays back earliest, because it changes what the intake asks. Introduced after the journey is live, most of that value has already been spent.
CasePartners™
You hold the book. The question becomes whether the data you already have can evidence the class as defined.
Read the mode →LeadPartners™
We build the book from nothing, so every registration question is written after the class definition rather than before it.
Read the mode →ArbPartners™
US mass arbitration. Claims are individual, so eligibility is tested per claimant rather than certified once.
Read the mode →- Jurisdiction
- UK (Competition Appeal Tribunal, High Court) · EU (European Commission and national competition authorities).
- Case type
- Collective proceedings founded on abuse of dominance or anti-competitive agreements; follow-on damages claims.
- Best introduced
- Before the class definition is settled, and certainly before the registration journey is built.
- Also useful
- As a fresh pair of eyes on economics already prepared, or where commonality is being challenged.
- Not a fit
- Matters where the harm is not economic in this sense — product liability, data breach and personal injury sit outside the discipline.
Questions of substance
Isn’t this just the expert we would instruct anyway?+
Often it is the same role, and that is the point. The arrangement exists so the participation programme is built to the expert’s definition rather than in parallel with it. Instruction and independence are unchanged; what changes is that the intake and the economics are drafted in the same room.
How is this different from the quantum partner?+
Competition economics establishes the theory of harm, the market, the class and the methodology — the economic case itself. Quantum and analytics sizes the claim and reads the claimant book as a financial asset. They are complementary, they frequently run together, and the specification records which questions belong to which.
Does Mediatasks influence the economic opinion?+
No, and it would be a serious problem if we did. We take the definition as given and report plainly on what the register can evidence. Where something cannot be proven from the data, we say so — which is information, not influence.
We already have economists instructed.+
Then this is either a review role or nothing at all, and we will not push it. GMT Economics offers a fresh-pair-of-eyes review of economics already prepared, which is a narrower and cheaper engagement than leading it.
Our registration journey is already live. Is it too late?+
Not too late, but more expensive. A conformity review will establish what the current register can and cannot evidence, and what has to be asked of existing claimants retrospectively. That second exercise is the one worth avoiding.
How is the arrangement paid for?+
Each firm is paid for its own work, on terms agreed with you in writing before it begins. Neither firm pays the other for an introduction. The specification sets out the commercial basis in full.
Request the specification.
The joint specification sets out scope, how the class definition passes into the intake journey, the data specification, expert independence, and the commercial basis in full. Sent as a PDF, no call required.
Request the specification
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