Price fixing

[rpwoodman]

What constitutes price fixing, and is it legal in the UK?

I have been looking to get a Kriega bag, but no one discounts them. Even at the bike show up in London a couple of months back, no one was discounting them.
The only place I could find to buy an Apple PowerBook Pro which offered a discount, was £1 less than buying direct from Apple...

And OPEC is one big price fix!

[Moffatt666]

You ain't looking hard enough ;)

[Ed]

No, price fixing is not legal anywhere within the EU. In fact it's a very serious offence, punishable by a severe whipping and flogging from the OFT or the European Commission. Rightly so, too.

This is a good example of people being caught out - the football shirts case.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/resource_base/ca98/decisions/football-kit

[rpwoodman]

That's interesting Ed, thanks.
I'm guessing that it's difficult to prove price fixing is going on - just because a product is always sold at the same price, regardless out outlet, isn't enough I guess.
There was a case a year os so ago when Asda (or Tesco - can't remember), were trying to sell Levi jeans at a much discounted rate but they were not allowed to. I never really understood why they couldn't sell them cheaper than Levi wanted - is that not a sort of price fixing?

Rgds

[sarah]

That's interesting Ed, thanks.
I'm guessing that it's difficult to prove price fixing is going on - just because a product is always sold at the same price, regardless out outlet, isn't enough I guess.
There was a case a year os so ago when Asda (or Tesco - can't remember), were trying to sell Levi jeans at a much discounted rate but they were not allowed to. I never really understood why they couldn't sell them cheaper than Levi wanted - is that not a sort of price fixing?

Rgds

wasn't that an issue about grey imports

see here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1261829.stm)

[rpwoodman]

wasn't that an issue about grey imports

see here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1261829.stm)

Ahh, yes, you're right - thanks Sarah.
(and should have done my homework before asking the question - hangs head in shame... :-) )

[sarah]

Ahh, yes, you're right - thanks Sarah.
(and should have done my homework before asking the question - hangs head in shame... :-) )

no probs. i only knew because i had to do an essay about the subject! if you are interested this (http://www.patent.gov.uk/policy/policy-issues/policy-issues-trademarks/policy-issues-trademarks-parallel/policy-issues-trademarks-parallel-parallelcaselaw.htm)is a bit more informative than that bbc article