£112m Imperial fine is stubbed out

December 12, 2011
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Imperial Tobacco today welcomed the Competition Appeal Tribunal's decision to quash a £112.3m fine imposed by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) on the Bristol-based tobacco giant for allegedly restricting competition. 

The OFT began an investigation in 2003 relating to certain promotional arrangements between Imps and multiple retailers. It always denied such arrangements had the purpose or the effect of restricting  competition but in April 2010 the OFT imposed the fine and two months later the company appealed the decision to the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

In a statement after today's decision Imps said: "We take compliance with competition law very seriously and have always rejected the OFT's suggestion that we acted anti-competitively or in any way contrary to the interests of consumers.

"The hearing by the Competition Appeal Tribunal was the first time since the OFT's investigation began more than eight years ago that we were able to have its allegations independently reviewed. Under this independent scrutiny it became clear that the case the OFT was seeking to establish had no basis in fact, law or economics. We have consistently believed that this ought to have been apparent to the OFT a long time before now and that we should not have been forced into incurring considerable legal costs and management time defending ourselves in these circumstances."

The company added that the OFT's case collapsed part way through the hearing and it would now be applying to recover our legal costs. 

Imperial's shares rose just over 1% or 25p to 2,376p.

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