Dairy giant Arla Foods has refused to be drawn on reports in the UK that it may escape a hefty fine in the country’s probe into alleged price-fixing after handing the watchdog evidence of collusion.
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According to a report in the Financial Times today (29 November), Arla co-operated with the UK’s Office of Fair Trading under a “leniency agreement”.
The FT quoted “several people with knowledge of the inquiry” that pointed to an agreement between the two sides.
“Under the terms of leniency, if you were first in the queue and you were the only whistleblower and disclosed everything, you could get up to 100% reduction in fines,” one source told the FT.
Arla refused to comment. “The statement of objections was issued to us on a confidential basis and it would be inappropriate for us to comment,” a spokesperson for Arla Foods UK told just-food.
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By GlobalDataThe OFT was equally tight-lipped on what it termed “ongoing investigations”.
“Under the Enterprise Act unauthorised disclosure of certain information relating to ongoing OFT investigations could be an offence,” the OFT added.
In September, the OFT accused five supermarkets and five dairy processors of colluding to hike up the price of milk, butter and cheese.
The OFT claimed that retailers and dairy processors fixed the retail prices of milk, butter and cheese in 2002 and 2003, costing consumers some GBP270m (US$557m).
The British Retail Consortium has claimed that individual retailers had independently raised the price of milk, butter and cheese in a bid to keep farmers in business and ensure a supply of dairy products.
However, the BRC insisted not all of the extra cash reached the farmers and got “stuck to the sides on the way down the supply chain”.
One processor, Robert Wiseman Dairies, has already insisted it did not benefit from moves by UK retailers to increase farm-gate prices.
