GCR’s Matter of the Year nominees are those competition matters where the economic and legal teams demonstrate creative, strategic, and innovative work.  CE participated in 2 of the 5 disputes selected by GCR as the Matter of the Year for 2012.  In Imperial Tobacco vs Office of Fair Trading (“OFT”), Competition Economics' Director Luke Froeb submitted testimony on behalf of Imperial Tobacco Group concerning the anticompetitive conduct alleged in the OFT's 2010 infringement decision.   In that matter, the Competition Appeal Tribunal set aside an OFT Decision in which it fined Imperial Tobacco Group a record £112 million for alleged anticompetitive trading agreements with ten retailers.   In its investigation of the AT&T-T-Mobile proposed merger, Professor David Sibley and Competition Economics was retained by the DOJ to perform an evaluation of the competitive effects of the proposed merger.  A CE case team, led by Director Michael Doane, assisted Professor Sibley in his analysis.  The proposed merger would have brought together the second and fourth largest telecommunications carriers in the United States.  AT&T announced on December 19, 2011 that it would no longer pursue its $39 billion attempt to purchase T-Mobile.