Lord Hunt of Wirral assuaged fears over London Market reforms under the Enterprise Act 2002 at an IUA market briefing this week.
The senior partner at Beachcroft Wansbroughs provided a checklist for trade bodies to deal with the changes.
The Act affects competition, consumer and insolvency law. It introduces a streamlined system of administration and restricts the right of lenders to appoint administrative receivers.
The Act also establishes an Office of Fair Trading (OFT), new tests for the merger regime and the introduction of criminal sanctions for serious breaches of competition law.
"This Act is, in effect, three bills in one," said Hunt.
"It poses fundamental changes to the existing UK competition regime and brings it much closer to its US Anti-trust counterpart."
He said the introduction of criminal sanctions was possibly "overly-cautious" but said trade bodies "should fear nothing from genuine discussions with a clear objective which are carefully minuted afterwards."
