The UK’s Office of Fair Trading has suggested that tobacco firms and supermarkets including Asda-Walmart, Sainsbury and Tesco, have been involved in an arrangement to swap information on future tobacco pricing which, whilst falling short of price-fixing, had the same effect for customers and would be, if proved, illegal.
A further allegation, which also involved tobacco firms Imperial Tobacco and Gallaher, was that the companies had an understanding that the price of some brands would be linked to rival brands, hence hampering true price competition.
Tesco responded to the charge saying that it did not believe it had acted in any way that would harm consumers and it looked forward to seeing the detail of the allegations. Imperial Tobacco likewise rejected the charge that it had acted contrary to competition law.
The OFT has said that there should be no assumption that any of the named companies have broken the law, but it would act with heavy fines if any of them were found to do so. The OFT’s caution may have been prompted by the recent payout it was forced to make to supermarket Morrisons after it had incorrectly suggested the company had broken rules over milk pricing and found itself sued for defamation.
Source: Mallenbaker.net
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