Competition Commission Report

The Competition Commission, when it finally reported, was always likely to be unpopular with at least one of the many groups who feel that they have a stake in its decisions but one has to wonder whether today's statement was worth the wait.

I notice that the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has already asked the question, and it is difficult to disagree with their sentiment. Of course, the two principal sides in this argument will have different takes on the outcome - something along the lines of "stitch up" or "waste of time" is my guess.

I wonder how much taxpayers money has gone into reaching the conclusion that having found that some of the major food retailers were actually holding land-banks, that there was no reason to do anything. Will it cheer the small business communities across the nation to learn that ASDA have managed to obtain the outcome that they had wished for - by being allowed to open stores in towns which are Tesco dominated? This report was only released this afternoon at 4.30pm, so I suppose I should allow the contents to seep into the soul before venturing to comment further - but...

Did we not know most of the headline stuff from leaks during the past few weeks?