Group of private eye surgeons fined £0.5m for breaching competition law

The United Kingdom’s largest group of eye surgeons has been fined £500 000 (€720 000; $780 000) for breaches of competition law in the first such case brought against UK medical professionals.

Consultant Eye Surgeons Partnership, which represents 37 consultant partnerships and more than 200 consultants, admitted a series of offences between September 2008 and May 2015. These included recommending members not to accept lower fees offered by an insurer, recommending that they charge higher fees to insured patients than to patients who pay themselves, circulating price lists for procedures such as cataract surgery, and …