Price fixing

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!

You ain't looking hard enough

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_res...s/football-kit

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

Originally Posted by 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

wasn't that an issue about grey imports

see here

Originally Posted by sarah

wasn't that an issue about grey imports

see here

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

Originally Posted by rpwoodman

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 is a bit more informative than that bbc article