JD Sports and Footasylum fined almost £5m for breaching CMA order
JD Sports and Footasylum have been fined almost £5m for sharing commercially sensitive information during an investigation by the UK competition watchdog, which accused them of deleting phone records, and found their chairmen to have held multiple clandestine meetings including one caught on video in a car park near Bury in Greater Manchester.
JD Sports bought the trainer retailer for £90m in 2019 in a deal that was subsequently subjected to an in-depth investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority, during which time the companies were ordered to operate as separate businesses.
In November, days after the CMA ordered the deal to be unwound over competition concerns, a covert video recording emerged of the JD Sports executive chairman, Peter Cowgill, and his counterpart at Footasylum, Barry Brown, holding a meeting in a car park during the investigation period.
On Monday, the CMA published the findings of a new investigation, fining the companies a combined £4.7m for holding two meetings in which they “exchanged commercially sensitive information”.
“There is a black hole when it comes to the meetings. Both CEOs cannot recall crucial details about these meetings,” said Kip Meek, the chair of the CMA inquiry group. “On top of this, neither CEO or JD Sports’ general counsel can provide any documentation around the meetings – no notes, no agendas, no emails and poor phone records, some of which were deleted before they could be given to the CMA.”
The CMA said it used its information-gathering powers to try to develop a “clearer picture”, including submitting legally binding requests to the companies for information, to which they did not respond in full.
It said information discussed included Footasylum’s issues with
Read more on theguardian.com
