29 June 2011 - Today Keith chaired the latest meeting of Fair Play: Retailers and the Food Supply Chain Working Group. The group met to examine unfair business practices and to hear the draft conclusions of a business consultation which was completed earlier in the year. They also heard about emerging plans for a British Groceries Code Adjudicator.
The group heard presentations from the EU Commission’s Internal Market Directorate, Food Drink Europe, the Italian Meat Manufacturers’ Association and the Grocery Market Action Group UK.
The group heard that the EU Commission is going to develop a definition of fair trading, review what controlling legislation is in place at Member State level, and consider whether this should be a subject for EU legislation. Building on past work the Competition Directorate will report on best practice later this year, probably in September.
The group also heard about consultations with EU businesses. These found that an overwhelming proportion of companies felt they had been exposed to unfair practices. Amongst the most common of these were:
- breaking contract terms
- threats of de-listing products
- arbitrary reductions in payments against supplier invoices
Because these problems are spread across all Member States it was argued that legislation at EU level was needed.
One example of British action to tackle these issues is the proposed Groceries Code Adjudicator which will be set up to adjudicate disputes between suppliers and their customers. Unfortunately this body won’t have the power to issue penalties for breaking fair trading codes.
All the speakers spoke of the ambition to reduce unfair business practices in EU to safeguard supplier and retailer alike. The group is co-chaired by Keith Taylor MEP and Mairead McGuinness MEP and the next meeting will be in the autumn.
