Yahoo Finance M&S and Morrisons ‘unlawfully’ blocked rivals from opening near their stores
Marks & Spencer and Morrisons have been reprimanded by the competition regulator for unlawfully blocking rival supermarkets from opening new sites near their stores.
The two supermarkets were found by the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) to be in breach of rules around land deals multiple times between 2011 and 2020.
The CMA said M&S and Morrisons either placed restrictions on land they owned to prevent rival stores from opening there or stopped landlords from signing deals with their rivals.
Morrisons was found to have the poorest compliance record ever seen by the CMA, having breached the rules 55 times between 2011 and 2020.
It follows similar breaches by Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Asda, which have also been rebuked by the monopolies watchdog. On Wednesday, the CMA said M&S breached the order 10 times between 2015 and 2019.
Adam Land, a senior director at the CMA, said: “At a time when the weekly shop is a source of financial pressure for many families, it’s crucial that competition between supermarkets is working well to help people get the best deals they can.
“These restrictive agreements by our leading retailers are unlawful. There can be no excuses made for non-compliance with an order made in 2010, especially when we know the positive impact for shoppers of new stores on the high street.”
The CMA said Morrisons had ended restrictions in 14 of the cases and agreed to address the remaining 41 restrictions. M&S has ended five of the restrictions and agreed to address the other cases.
The regulator said it has written to both supermarkets to outline the breaches and actions to improve their compliance in the future.
A spokesman for M&S said: “We are disappointed that having worked closely with the CMA over the past three years, it has highlighted ten breaches, five of which are historic and expired. These have made no practical difference to the activity of our competitors or our tenants and did not adversely affect competition.
“We are remedying these immediately, continuing to work with the CMA, and have introduced tighter internal governance and compulsory training to prevent it happening again.”
A spokesman for Morrisons said: “We co-operated fully with the investigation and accept its findings. We now plan to rectify the outstanding breaches quickly.”
It comes as part of a wider push by the CMA which is currently investigating claims of profiteering and so-called greedflation in the food industry. Last month it said branded products including baked beans and baby formula had contributed to higher food price inflation by hiking their prices more than necessary.
The CMA has not found evidence of profiteering by supermarkets, although is poised to start a further piece of work into how retailers price products under their loyalty card schemes.
The scrutiny over land deals follows complaints by discounters that they are being hampered in their efforts to open new stores.
Giles Hurley, the UK head of Aldi, told the Telegraph earlier this year that the company was at risk of missing its expansion targets in Britain because of sabotage by rivals, including launching a series of objections during the planning process.
Mr Hurley suggested these steps were cynically motivated by a desire to “prevent” customers from switching to Aldi.
