OFT publishes Annual Report 2009-10

[Legal Beagles]

The OFT has published its Annual Report for the last financial year and an estimate of its financial benefits to consumers. The report shows that the OFT has saved consumers at least £359m per year on average over the period 2007 to 2010 in competition enforcement, consumer protection, merger and markets work across the economy.


Download Annual Report and Resource Accounts 2009-10 (2.1Mb) Annexe A - Consumer protection casework (80kb)
Annexe B - Consumer credit statistics (102kb)
Annexe C - Competition law casework (68kb)
Annexe D - UK mergers casework (73kb)
Annexe E - Market studies, super-complaints, and reviews of undertakings and orders (71kb)

Annexe F - Consumer Direct page 1 (100kb) Consumer Direct page 2 (44kb)
Annexe G - Local Authority proscutions (100kb)
Annexe H - Freedom of information/data protection (50kb)
Annexe I - Summary of progress against the CSR07 Performance Framework Agreement (89kb)
Annexe J - Simplification and Burden Minimisation Plan 2010 (118kb)



Key OFT achievements during 2009-10 include:

• Taking infringement decisions against 109 firms for breaches of competition law, including in the construction and financial services sector. Overall, the OFT imposed or agreed fines of more than £197million.
• Protecting consumers from unfair commercial practices and unfair contract terms, including securing an important precedent through a High Court order to prevent a letting agency using certain unfair terms in its agreements, ensuring that firms offering sale and rent-back agreed to change or withdraw unsubstantiated advertising, and the OFT's first criminal consumer protection investigation, into a suspected unlawful pyramid scheme.
• Publishing or launching market studies on home buying and selling, Isle of Wight ferry services, second-hand cars and corporate insolvency, resulting in practical recommendations to ensure benefits for consumers in these sectors.
• Continuing to protect consumers from potential reductions in competition as a result of mergers, including overseeing the divestment of more than 100 stores following The Co-operative Group's acquisition of around 880 Somerfield shops.
• Protecting consumers, especially vulnerable consumers, in the credit market through targeted use of powers in relation to high risk activities such as debt collecting, debt management, secured lending, and high-cost credit.
• Conducting campaigns to raise consumer awareness of scams, rogue doorstep traders, Christmas savings schemes and legal rights when purchasing goods and services.

The OFT has also worked to improve the transparency of its processes, external engagement, competition and consumer advocacy, and the evaluation of its work while reducing burdens on businesses. Looking ahead, the OFT will continue to use competition and consumer powers to drive growth and target enforcement activity at areas that pose the most risk to consumers. It will also develop further its strategy for online consumer protection.

Philip Collins, OFT Chairman, said:






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[Amethyst]

Re: OFT publishes Annual Report 2009-10

How come the PCA Market Study doesnt show in Annex http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/ann...rt2009-10e.pdf - should be in either completed or continuing for that period ??


Small bit for the test case in the main report pages 25 and 31 but not a lot.


Page 31
Other marketrelated
work

Personal current accounts
Following our 2008 market study
into personal current accounts
(PCAs), we worked with
stakeholders to address concerns
about transparency, switching and
unarranged overdraft charges.
To improve transparency, we
obtained agreement from banks to
introduce annual summaries of the
cost of their accounts, to highlight
charges on monthly statements and
to provide consumers with
information on their average
balances. The banks also committed
to providing illustrative charging
scenarios to give consumers an idea
of the cost of different patterns of
PCA use, while we provided new
advice and tools on the Consumer
Direct website to help consumers
understand and compare the costs
of their accounts.
To address concerns about
switching, we worked with Bacs,
the payment processor, to improve
the process of switching bank
accounts and to increase consumer
confidence in the switching process.
The issue of complexity and lack of
control over unarranged overdraft
charges was the subject of a
Supreme Court judgment in
November 2009 (for full details of
the judgment and our full response,
see page 25).


Page 25
Protecting consumers
from unfair commercial
practices and unfair
contract terms
Bank charges
In November 2009, the Supreme
Court found against the OFT when
it ruled that terms used by certain
UK banks for charging personal
account holders for going overdrawn
without prior arrangement could not
be assessed in full for fairness under
the Unfair Terms in Consumer
Contracts Regulations (UTCCRs).
This concluded a test case we had
agreed to bring with seven banks
and one building society. In previous
hearings, the High Court and Court
of Appeal had found in our favour.
After detailed consideration of the
Supreme Court judgment, in
December 2009 we decided against
continuing our UTCCRs
investigation. However, we
remained concerned about the
operation of the market for personal
current accounts, and in particular
unarranged overdraft charges. We
continued to work with the banks
and other stakeholders to achieve
change to address these concerns.
See page 31 for more information on
our work relating to the personal
current account market.




Nothing!