Golf: Ping’s online-sales ban ruled out-of-bounds under competition law

On 21 January 2020, the Court of Appeal handed down a decision[1] upholding a 2017 decision[2] by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that Ping had infringed competition law in preventing its authorised resellers from offering golf clubs for sale over the internet. In so doing, the Court of Appeal has re-affirmed the basic principal that bans on online sales are to be regarded as “object” restrictions, meaning they will almost always liable to be found to infringe the competition rules.