Tom Bawden Tuesday 13 December 2011
The Office of Fair Trading suffered a setback yesterday after a consortium of leading tobacco and retail groups overturned a previous ruling of unlawful pricing.
Imperial Tobacco, the maker of Golden Virginia rolling tobacco and Superkings, saw its £112.3m penalty reversed, and Co-op, Morrisons, Asda and Royal Dutch Shell were also successful in overturning their cases in front of the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
Imperial said it would now apply to recover its “considerable” legal costs. The case had alleged that two manufacturers and 10 retailers fixed prices on cigarettes, hand-rolled tobacco, pipe tobacco and cigars between 2001 and 2003, resulting in a total of £225m in fines last year, the biggest the consumer watchdog had levied.