Jump to content
Why become a member? ×

Fender fined for price fixing


Drax

Recommended Posts

And that was the result of a plea bargain:

Quote

The penalty would have been £14.2m had Fender not admitted to the offence under the CMA’s leniency and settlement procedures. 

I lack the knowledge to know if the fine is a good thing. On the face of it, it would seem to be excellent news but this is where someone far better informed points out that the decision will have some terrible knock-on effect that I hadn't considered.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, 2elliot said:

Good. I wouldn't be surprised if a few other manufacturers get pulled as well.

Oh yes, I'm sure that there are high level meetings at certain manufacturers taking place as we speak to discuss 'communication protocol' and 'historic communication data purging initiatives' after reading this: 

"The CMA also found that certain Fender employees deliberately tried to cover up their actions by recording as little as possible in writing. However, the investigation uncovered emails and texts from Fender’s IT servers and mobile phones, which proved the illegal behaviour."

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course the other big price fix/anti-competitive policy is that to stock Fender (or Gibson) retailers have to buy a minimum (but large) value of stock, effectively locking out small local music shops from stocking new Fenders as the entry price is too high for them to afford. It also means the medium sized outlets would have to choose between Fender and Gibson with only the biggest outlets able to afford to stock both. Either way the chance most of us have of going in and trying instruments and comparing them and then being able to shop around is highly constrained. In the meantime both companies only need to service a limited no. of outlets who effectively become main dealers tied to policies controlled by Fender.

Fining American companies is an interesting policy, I wonder if Mr Trump knows about it?

If only there were some sort of Europe wide trading association we could be part of.

  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, paul_c2 said:

Personally amazed a company would be stupid enough to do it. It can't be just one rogue employee - what were the others thinking? Just go along with the illegal idea?

They're real outlaws, these rock 'n' roll hooligans.

You'd never get this kind of misconduct from the Stradivari.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

didn't we get into this on another thread a while back?  Maybe not Fender?

The defence offered was that as a manufacturer it makes little difference to them because they get the wholesale price no matter what and actually letting sellers drop the price means more sales for them, but they were trying to maintain minimum prices offered on line so that they were comparable to what bricks and mortar shops would have to charge because of their overheads

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the Gov website

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guitar-maker-fined-4-5m-for-illegally-preventing-price-discounts

They got a discount on the fine too...

They were also fined £25,000 for hiding notebooks in their East Grinstead head office according to the Guardian which may be the most Reggie Perrin Grot industries thing ever.

 

Edited by Low End Bee
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...