Competition law prohibition is to extend to land agreements, says Malcolm Dowden & Saira Malik
The Land Agreements Exclusion and Revocation Order 2004, which excluded land agreements from the operation of the Competition Act 1998, has been revoked subject to a transitional period up to 6 April 2011 to allow businesses to review their land agreements for compliance with competition laws.
The exclusion for land agreements.
The 1998 Act prohibits:
- anti-competitive agreements (Ch 1); and
- abuse of a dominant market position (Ch 2).
Agreements were excluded from the Ch 1 prohibition to the extent that they create, alter, transfer or terminate an interest in land on the grounds that they were unlikely to have an adverse effect on competition.
However, the Competition Commission’s April 2008 report on grocery retailing concluded that exclusivity arrangements and restrictive covenants (especially by the major grocery retailers) can create:
- challenges for new entrants; and
- difficulties for existing competitors intending to expand.
It concluded that the exclusion for land agreements entered into by those major grocery
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