Ecotricity settles with Tesla out of court in electric vehicle chargers dispute

Rhodri Thompson QC and Nicholas Gibson have been acting as specialist competition counsel for the claimants in Ecotricity Group Ltd & The Electric Highway Company Ltd v Tesla Motors Inc & Tesla Motors Netherlands BV.  Green energy supplier Ecotricity filed for an injunction against Tesla at the High Court in May 2014, alleging that Tesla was seeking to procure that operators of motorway service stations break their exclusive contracts with Ecotricity to supply charging services for electric vehicles.  In its counterclaim, Tesla challenged on competition law grounds the exclusivity of Ecotricity’s electric vehicle charging network at motorway service stations. The case was set to apply competition law to exclusive agreements for the use of land with important implications for the growing market for electric vehicles as well, and was highlighted by The Lawyer as one of the ‘Top 20 cases of 2015’.  An out of court settlement has now been reached between the parties, the terms of which are confidential.