JJB fixes another appeal against CAT ruling |
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Sat, 21 May 2005 08:25
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The Competition Appeal Tribunal’s (CAT’s) ruling of reducing JJB Sports’ fine of £8.37m to £6.3m, has failed to stop the sportswear company from fighting over the case of price fixing of replica shirts.
The fines imposed by the Office of Fair trading (OFT) on JJB, Umbro as well as Manchester United (Man Utd’s) for allegedly being part of the 10-company group that fixed prices of replica football shirts at artificially high levels, were slashed by the CAT yesterday following the companies’ appeals against the penalties.
JJB had its fine reduced to £6.3m from £8.37m, whereas Umbro’s fine was cut from £6.64m to £5.3m. Man Utd, as well saw its penalty coming down to £1.5m from £1.65m.
| Even though JJB acknowledged that the penalty reduction by CAT had in someway pleased it, it did not seem too satisfied with the amount of fine reduction and reiterated its innocence in the price fixing issue. It has, therefore, planned to take the ruling further to the Court of Appeal through the CAT, claiming that the fine reduction was too minimal and that it “does not believe that it fully reflects the findings made in JJB's favour by the CAT in the main hearing”.
Alternatively, CAT increased Allsports' penalty to £1.42m from £1.35m in view of the poor conduct of the company. At that, Marjorie Holmes, partner at Davies Arnold Cooper, stated, “I think this is the first time the CAT has ever increased a fine on appeal." The OFT fined 10 businesses - four of which appealed to the CAT - a total of £18.6m in August 2003.”
However, other organisations that were fined by the OFT, like the Football Association, Blacks, Sports Soccer, JD Sports, Sports Connection, Sportsetail, along with the aforementioned Umbro and Man Utd., did not file any appeal against the CAT’s ruling.
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