The Laws and Ethics Committee is the national authority for the game of Duplicate Contract Bridge within England, The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
It has three principal functions.
- It is the final appeal body for appeals arising under the Laws of the game, although such appeals are only entertained if matters of principle (as opposed to bridge judgement) are involved, and so are relatively rare.
- It decides whether to refer complaints to the EBU disciplinary panel and if so acts as the "prosecuting" authority in these cases.
- It publishes the Blue Book, which contains regulations for the agreements permitted in different classes of competition, and also various other directives which supplement the Laws of the game. The Blue Book can be downloaded from this website. Amendments are made annually, taking effect on August 1.