The UK’s competition watchdog has unveiled a new crackdown on illegal price fixing, less than a year after it fined an estate agency group hundreds of thousands of pounds for the practice.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced it is launching a new campaign to encourage more people to come forward after it was awarded an extra £2.8m from the Government for the work.
The CMA said that UK workers knew little about how cartels worked but that the new campaign called “Safe, not Sorry” would ask people who think they may have involved themselves in cartel activity to report it to the watchdog.
Witnesses, who can receive a reward of up to £100,000 for blowing the whistle, are also asked to “Do the Right Thing”.
The CMA claimed it had seen an increase in tip-offs of 30% in 2017 after the launch of its first digital campaign.
And it pointed to some of its recent successes, including a fine of over £370,000 it levied on a group of Somerset estate agents for fixing the minimum price of its commission rates, which it said denied home owners a fair deal when selling their property.
The ruling, in May last year, found that a group of six agents in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, had a meeting where they agreed to fix their minimum commission rates to 1.5%.
The six, said the CMA report, potentially had 95% local market share between them.
“With a bit of talking and cooperation between us, we all win!” was their rationale.
The agents fined were Abbott and Frost Estate Agents Ltd, Gary Berryman Estate Agents Ltd (and its ultimate parent company Warne Investments Ltd), Greenslade Taylor Hunt, Saxons PS Ltd; and West Coast Property Services (UK) Ltd.
The sixth agent, Annagram Estates Ltd (trading as CJ Hole), was not fined as it was the first undertaking to confess its participation in the arrangement under the CMA’s leniency policy and co-operated with the CMA’s investigation.
The CMA said its new campaign would target sectors including construction, manufacturing and business support services.
A spokesperson for the CMA confirmed that estate agency would fall under the “business support services” category.
Stephen Blake, senior director for cartels at the CMA, said: “We are committed to tackling cartels wherever we find them.
“More people are reporting illegal activity to us and we urge anyone with information to come forward.
“If you’re involved, it’s better to be safe, not sorry, and to tell us about it first – before someone else does.
“For those who were not involved but have witnessed illegal activity, we urge them to do the right thing.
“We know that this is a sensitive issue and some people could worry about what might happen to them if they speak to us.
“All information is treated confidentially and we can discuss any concerns that people may have over keeping their identity secret.”
The CMA claims it has issued £151m of fines following investigations into anti-competitive practices over the past two years.
It is currently investigating 15 cases where competition law may have been broken.
Businesses found to have been involved in illegal cartels can be fined up to 10% of their annual turnover.
Individuals can face up to five years in prison and directors can be disqualified from holding director positions for up to 15 years.
Seems after previous investigations the CMA don’t have a problem with this behaviour by software vendors to the industry. So long as you acquire your competitor company prior to raising & fixing the price artificially high the CMA are ok with it.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
I’m amazed that there are any cartels. I’ve been in this business for 30 Years and I rarely speak to agents that could collectively agree to cross the road together, never mind agree fees.
It seems from the crowing from said department that it has gone on, fair enough, get in your transit vans and ford granada Sweeney Style and start battering down those doors whilst humming the theme tune and shouting “Youer Nicked!”.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
A simple guide from the CMA. If you work as part of a franchise, you would do well to read this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/477592/SME_Compliance_Checklist.pdf
Worried? Some readers probably are/ should be.
Call the CMA
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
I applaud this initiative, but I would also like to see the CMA looking more at ‘abuse of a dominant market position to eliminate competition’.
Never hear them talk about that at all!
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
So using £250 million of other peoples money to charge unsustainable low and unprofitable fees to buy a market share is OK then?
Particularly when 10,000s of people now pay for failure or two agency fees?
That is not progress.
Come on CMA get a grip on this.
To achieve a level playing field all you have to do is insist all call centre agents must provide the choice of No sale, No fee?
The average agency fee in UK is around 1% whereas in Australia it is around 3% and USA around 6% -the UK simply does not have a cartel problem when you consider these other countries fees?
Why do you think PB have moved to these much higher commission countries?
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register