Restrictive practices by the trade body representing owners of fairground rides has left funfairs with fewer new attractions, the competition regulator has claimed.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Wednesday that the law may have been breached by rules enforced by a trade body in the travelling fair sector, the Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain.
Ann Pope, a senior antitrust director at the CMA, said: “These allegations concern the use of restrictive rules which could limit competition between funfairs and effectively prevent non-guild members from being able to compete.
“Fair-goers may lose out if new fairs can’t take place or if existing fairs are under less competitive pressure to provide different or new attractions.”
The CMA said guild members made up 90% of the travelling fairs sector in the UK, a market estimated to be worth £100m a year. The regulator claims that the body’s rules and practices prevent competition in organising or attending fairs, and may also stop members from starting new fairs in competition with existing events.
Fairs tend to be staged at the request of local authorities, who ask an organiser to arrange to supply the attractions. The organisers tend to be guild members, who then widely use guild members to provide the rides.
The CMA alleges that even in cases where local authorities try to alter or improve a fair without the consent of the guild, “its members can boycott the whole fair as a result of the rules as happened in Newcastle in 2013 which meant the Hoppings Fair did not go ahead, leading to around half a million fair-goers who usually attend missing out”.
The Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain declined to comment on the CMA’s statement or explain what it does to look after its members’ interests.
However, the body’s website says it protects “the interests of its members ... by its code of rules for members and through the legal and constitutional processes of the land.
“Through its parliamentary agent, the guild contests any proposed legislation that discriminates against its members; or seeks concessions when legislation threatens their ability to make a living. In matters involving local authorities a delegation of officers will usually be called upon to represent member’s interests.”
The CMA added: “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 before deciding whether the law has been broken.”
The 1998 Competition Act prohibits “agreements, practices and conduct that may have a damaging effect on competition” in the UK and covers “anti-competitive agreements, decisions by associations and concerted practices between businesses which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the UK and which may affect trade within the UK”.
Any business found to have infringed that section of the legislation can be fined up to 10% of its annual worldwide group turnover, the CMA said.
