What hard work British civil servants have to do these days.
After an exhaustive investigation, which no doubt involved carefully examining pictures of beautiful women, they have accused the fashion industry of operating as a cartel.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has alleged that five agencies for fashion models and their trade association, the Association of Model Agents, breached competition law.
The suggestion from this non-ministerial government department is that between April 2013 and March 2015 various London agencies – including those which discovered Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne – agreed to exchange confidential, competitively sensitive information, including future pricing information, and in some instances agreed a common approach to pricing.
The agencies in the firing line are FM Models, Models 1, Premier, Storm and Viva.
They have managed the careers of scores of top models including Yasmin Le Bon, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell.
The Senior Director of the CMA’s Cartels and Criminal Group, Stephen Blake, said: “The allegations concern prices charged to a range of customers, including high street chains, online fashion retailers and consumer goods brands. The CMA alleges that these five model agencies sought to achieve higher prices in negotiations with their customers by colluding instead of competing. This is the first competition enforcement case taken forward by the CMA in the creative industries, which are an important part of the UK economy. It shows the CMA’s commitment to pursuing allegations that competition law has been broken in all sectors of the economy. Vigorous competition between businesses has benefits for customers and for the economy, keeping prices down and encouraging businesses to improve quality and be more efficient. These are provisional findings only and no conclusion can be drawn at this stage that there has been a breach of competition law. We will carefully consider any representations from the parties before deciding whether the law has been broken.”
