REGULATING THE DEREGULATED MARKET

Peter MACKIE Jonathan PRESTON Senior Lecturer Lecturer Institute for Transport Studies Institute for Transport Studies University of Leeds UK University of Leeds UK

1. INTRODUCTION

In 1986, the British local bus industry was deregulated. Bus operators are now free to decide what bus services they wish to provide commercially and what fares they wish to charge. There is quality control of operators, drivers and vehicles, but no quantity or entry control. The only restriction on entry and exit is that the operator must register his service, giving 42 days notice of the route and timetable which are to be offered. Local authorities may choose to supplement the commercial network by securing additional services via competitive tender. Prior to 1986, the industry had been run on public service principles and had been largely exempted from the provisions of competition and restrictive practice legislation. The basic economic argument for deregulation was the contestability hypothesis. The industry, it was argued, was characterised by constant returns to scale and no significant sunk costs. Established firms would be forced to behave efficiently in terms of cost minimisation, resource allocation and innovation, if they were to prevent more efficient new competitors from entering their markets successfully. Competitive discipline would be maintained by the threat of entry to punish greedy or inefficient monopolists. From the point of view of regulatory control of industry, high market contestability has a number of desirable properties. The equilibrium prices and output in the market should be the same, irrespective of the market structure. A single firm cannot dominate the market, nor is there any incentive to merge with or acquire rival firms so as to reduce actual competition. Neither is there any incentive to predatory behaviour, since the loss of profits involved in reducing prices and/or raising output relative to competitive levels would be irrecoverable. A theoretical perfectly contestable market can therefore be left to run itself. The Government, however, did not take this purist line at the time of deregulation, preferring a more pragmatic approach. It required the National Bus Company to be sold not as a single large firm but to be split into 70 local subsidiaries for privatisation. Moreover, the exemption from competition and restrictive practice legislation was removed; the bus industry was now subject to competition law, administered by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC), like the rest of the private sector. Indeed, it has turned out that the bus industry, which accounts for no more than one per cent of GDP, has been the focus of extraordinary attention from the regulatory control agencies during the last five years. The purposes of this paper are to describe briefly the nature of this regulatory activity, and to see

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what lessons can be learned both for competition policy in Britain and for the economic character of the bus industry.

2. ANTI-COMPETITIVE BEHAVIOUR

Between 1986 and 1990, the OFT received 247 allegations of anti-competitive behaviour by bus operators (Dodgson, 1991). These fell into three main categories. First, there were complaints about bus station access and pricing. Clearly where the large incumbent operator owned the local bus station, he could potentially gain an advantage by excluding his competitors or by more subtle methods. In the one case considered by the OFT (that of - see Table 1), the ruling was that exclusion of a small operator in this way was anti-competitive, and an undertaking was given by the major operator to permit access. The second category related to registration of commercial services in competition with tendered services. A typical chain of events might be as follows. A large incumbent might decide that one of his services was no longer profitable, and might then deregister the service. The local authority might then decide to invite competitive tenders for the service if they judged it to be socially desirable. The incumbent operator would be hoping for this, and would be expecting to win the tender. If, however, the tender was won by a small competitor the major firm might decide after all to operate a competing service commercially. The small firm might then complain to OFT that such behaviour was anti-competitive. The largest group of complaints (105) concerned allegations of predatory behaviour. On one definition, this occurs where incumbents deliberately make losses in order to eliminate a new entrant or to deter or delay entry. On another, "Predatory behaviour occurs when firms give up some of their maximum current profits after entry into one of their markets has occurred in order to eliminate the new competitor or deter or delay subsequent entry so that greater profits can be earned in the longer run" (Dodgson, Katsoulacos and Newton, 1991). This is a very strict definition because it implies that a firm operating profitably in the relevant market might still be guilty of predation. However, there are certain forms of behaviour (such as running a free bus to the same timetable as your small rival) which are clearly predatory on either definition. One possible response to the allegation of predatory behaviour would be to say that since in a contestable market, no sensible commercial firm would behave in such a manner, these must be the delusions of inefficient or misguided competitors. This has not been the chosen response however. The OFT has to date investigated four cases of alleged predation (Table 1). In doing so, it adopted the less strict definition in that for predation to be shown, the offender must incur losses, not merely forego profits. The OFT adopted a three stage approach by asking:- (i) is predation feasible? (ii) what are the relationships between prices and costs?

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(iii) what are the motives and intentions of the alleged predator? Predation is unlikely to be a feasible strategy in a highly competitive industry, nor is it likely to be observed in a strong natural monopoly where, misguided entrants can be left to perish of natural causes. From the literature (Joskow and Klevorick, 1979, Katsoulacos, 1991), predation is most likely to occur where:- (i) there are medium barriers to entry (ii) the market is highly concentrated and/or competition is localised (iii) incumbents operate in a multi-market industry where successful predation in one market helps to deter entry into other markets through a demonstration effect (iv) the incumbent possesses larger financial reserves than the entrant, so can use a "long-purse" strategy to finance the short-term losses. Do these conditions apply to the local bus industry? The market share figures in Table 1 indicate that all four incumbents were dominant in their local markets and had the ability to cross-subsidise from other routes. Contrary to the high contestability hypothesis, there are some entry barriers. There are some sunk costs in the form of acquiring knowledge of the market, of training employees, and of successfully marketing a new operator to a notoriously conservative public. Moreover, in the commercial part of the market, the incumbent does not have to set price at competitive levels to deter entry - the threat to do so post entry is sufficiently credible to constitute a barrier to entry (this is not such a problem in the tender market where the incumbent loses the contract for a finite period if he quotes an uncompetitive price). The desire to create a tough image - keep off our territory - has also been a feature of some operators' behaviour. It is our view that, to a greater or lesser degree, the local bus market exhibits all four of the above characteristics (Mackie and Preston, 1992). Predation is therefore a feasible business strategy; a view shared by OFT. All four of the cases therefore passed to the second stage - the price/cost relationship. The OFT took the view that pricing below short-run marginal or short run variable cost was clear evidence of predation - in effect an application of the Areeda-Turner rule (Areeda and Turner, 1975). Prices between short run marginal costs and average total costs could not be unambiguously ascribed to predatory behaviour and evidence on intent would then be required. In deciding the cases, the OFT encountered some technical difficulties. In one case (West Yorkshire), the price cut had been made so as to match the new entrant's price on the competed section of a route. The data required to estimate the revenue/cost ratio on the relevant section of route was not available, and inevitably given the existence of joint products, joint costs and overheads, were subject to a degree of arbitrariness. In another case (South Yorkshire Transport), the question of how to treat spare capacity in costing the service came up. Here, the OFT argued that these resources had an opportunity cost in that they could be deployed profitably elsewhere. In this case, prices did not even cover short-run variable costs. The most substantial of the four cases was that of in . Here, prices were found to be between short run marginal and average total cost, and

1711 STO1 evidence of intent came into play. It was found that the company's Business Plan indicated a willingness to sustain losses - the "smoking gun". The case was referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) which reported in July 1990, 22 months after the initial complaint. The MMC agreed with the OFT's view that Highland Scottish's conduct had been anti-competitive and against the public interest. However, in the interim, the competitor (Inverness Traction) had eventually been taken over by a larger parent, Stagecoach Holdings, and a "less hectic form of competition emerged". Given these exceptional circumstances, no remedial measures were proposed, but the MMC threatened to recommend brisk remedial action in future cases. Our conclusions on predation are as follows:- (i) The OFT's three stage approach is a useful one. In the circumstances of the bus industry, the difficulties of identifying the incremental costs and revenues which firms might reasonably have anticipated make it important to look in addition at the behaviour pattern and at intentions. (ii) The OFT relies on complaints to trigger investigations. Bus wars between established firms may have involved predatory behaviour, but may not have been the subject of complaint. Firms may have been using similar tactics, or doubted the effectiveness of the OFT, or have believed that `Big boys don't cry'. Nevertheless, the public interest may have warranted an investigation of the battles in , South Manchester or Oxford rather than one or two of the relatively trivial cases investigated. (iii) It is unclear whether the same economic criteria apply to the entrant as to the incumbent. What if a workers co-operative, lacking in managerial skills and experience, mistakenly enters the market basing its business strategy on wildly over-optimistic forecasts of market share (this is what is alleged of Inverness Traction in the Highland Scottish case). Could the incumbent sustain a complaint to OFT of predatory entry? The criterion for the regulator, surely is which course of behaviour will do most to promote market contestability; in practice this means leaning in favour of the entrant, but not to the point of absurd double standards. (iv) The effectiveness of the anti-competitive practices legislation remains in doubt. The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly. The OFT must investigate and report on the complaint. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (SSTI) must then refer the case to the MMC for a further report, and must then decide what action to take. Even then; in no case so far has the incumbent suffered any penalty other than the cost of the managerial resources tied up in the investigation. The robust American world of criminal charges, punitive damages and imprisonment of senior executives seems far distant. To conclude, though the OFT's criteria for determining predation are about right, it is reactive to complaints rather than proactive, the system operates much too slowly, and the penalties are in practice grossly inadequate. Unless they behave outrageously, incumbents have little to fear, not least because OFT only has the resources to investigate a small fraction of complaints.

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3. MERGERS

One of the features of the bus industry since deregulation has been a significant degree of merger activity. This is not particularly surprising - there is no reason to suppose that the structure of the industry at deregulation which was created by a mixture of half a century of regulation plus the forced break-up of National Bus was necessarily what was sensible in economic terms. On this view, mergers and acquisitions are mechanisms by which the market adjusts to a more efficient solution. Another view is that mergers have occurred primarily in order to create local market dominance. As a result, the MMC has carried out six investigations into mergers in the local bus industry since 1986 (see Table 2). The OFT does not have unfettered discretion to refer any merger to the MMC for investigation; the merger must conform to certain criteria. One of these is that as a result of the merger, 25% or more of the supply or purchase of goods in the UK, or a substantial part of it comes under the control of the merging enterprise. Now clearly bus industry mergers, if they are against the public interest at all, will be so because of local market dominance; the question of what constitutes a substantial part of the UK, and how to measure market shares therefore becomes crucial. It looks from Table 2 as if the MMC had in mind a city region with a population of around a million as a substantial part of the UK; thus they investigated the bus market in and around , , Southampton, Sheffield, Coventry, Brighton and Teesside respectively. In considering the cases, the Commission took evidence from interested parties. The operators argued that the mergers were in the public interest because they increased efficiency and reduced the costs of delivering bus services. In terms of productive efficiency, some modest economies were sometimes available through rationalisation of management functions and computing services, and amalgamation of depots and engineering facilities. In terms of allocative efficiency, the main advantages of merger were claimed to be the introduction of co-ordinated timetables, removal of wasteful duplication and greater inter-availability of tickets. Against these efficiency gains, the MMC had to consider the effect of the mergers on competition. Their findings are summarised in Table 3. Their approach was essentially pragmatic rather than ideological; they took the facts of each case as they found them. They found that in all cases, the number of major competitors in the market place was small, and that the firms seeking to merge had high shares, especially of the commercial bus market in the local areas. A range of entry barriers were identified, and the MMC concluded that in five of the six cases, potential competition was not a realistic enough threat to offset the loss of actual competition. The MMC seem to have concluded that the industry is "imperfectly contestable", to use Morrison and Winston's (1987) term. Entry is feasible but, because of incumbency advantages, may not be sustainable. Potential competition is unlikely to be an effective discipline unless it is provided by very large firms. Active policy intervention is required in order to enhance market contestability. The interventions proposed are shown in Table 4.

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The analysis contained in the MMC reports, and the type of recommendations which the Commission have arrived at appear to us to be soundly based, with the possible exception of the case where attention should have been focussed on the commercial rather than the tendered market. Unfortunately the reports have been less effective than they might have been for four reasons. Firstly, in three of the cases where intervention was recommended, the SSTI overruled the MMC in favour of divestment. One suspects that the Government viewed undertakings restricting commercial freedom as contrary to broader policy. Secondly, in the SYT case, the operator's appeal first to the High Court and then to the Court of Appeal against compulsory divestment has been upheld on the grounds that the reference area is not, after all, a substantial part of the UK. This leaves the investigation of local merger cases in disarray, pending the outcome of the final appeal to the House of Lords. Thirdly, it is rather odd that the MMC has chosen to investigate six merger cases but not a single local monopoly case. Yet, from an economic performance standpoint, local monopoly requires investigation just as much as merger. For example West Midlands Travel operated 89% of the vehicle miles in the West Midlands area, in 1988. In Greater Manchester, and Merseyside, the main operator had about two-thirds of the market. Some of the MMC's resources might usefully be devoted to investigating one or more of these dominant local monopolies. Since in monopoly cases, the reference is to a `specified' area rather than a `substantial' area, referring monopoly rather than merger cases would get round the problem of the Appeal Court judgement. Fourthly, all merger investigations were undertaken ex-post, whereas ex-ante investigations are the norm for other industries. The mergers studied involved geographically contiguous firms even though there were a number of mergers involving non-contiguous firms. Similarly, all the mergers studied involved straightforward take- overs of acquired firms by the acquiring firm. More complex mergers involving the acquiring firm gaining a controlling, but minority, interest in the acquired firm were also common place. Opportunities to investigate merges that effected substantial parts of the UK (standard economic regions rather city regions) may have been lost.

4 RESTRICTIVE TRADE PRACTICES

Under the 1985 Transport Act, the general law on restrictive practices was extended to cover the bus industry. The law requires many kinds of commercial agreements between firms to be notified to the OFT, which must consider the effect on competition. If the OFT considers the restriction is anti-competitive, and the firms do not agree to drop their agreement or to change the nature of their. agreement, then the OFT will refer the agreement to the Restrictive Trade Practices Court. At that stage, the effect of the agreement on competition is considered against a number of possible public interest arguments - known as gateways - which may override or offset the anti- competitive effects. The characteristics of the bus industry raise some particular issues. Many bus

1714 Peter MACKIE, JONATHAN PRESTON routes have historically been operated jointly by two or more operators. In other cases, operators may seek to agree to co-ordinate their timetables on common sections of route so as to benefit the public. Fares-setting policies may also pose problems. At one extreme, an agreement on inter-availability of tickets might be seen as innocuous, yet an operator travelcard promoted by a group of incumbents might be an effective entry deterrent. The OFT have considered these issues in some depth (OFT 1991), and their advice is summarised in Table 5. Their conclusion is that any form of agreement on prices or service levels involves market sharing or price-fixing and is therefore anti- competitive. The exception is the multi-operator Travelcard, where the agreement offers the public a product (travel on a multi-operator route network) which would not otherwise be available. Most other forms of behaviour, such as agreed timetables, or joint provision of information, would not be seen as anti-competitive. In practice most of the OFT's work in this area appears to be informal and behind the scenes. Policy is to influence behaviour by providing guidance on what is or is not acceptable. So far about 170 bus agreements have been placed on the public register. Earlier work by Beesley (1990) found that of the first 239 agreements submitted, 115 were found to be objectionable. But only two agreements have subsequently been sent forward to the Court. One of these - Citybus/Midland Fox involved a failure to notify the OFT of a price-fixing and market sharing agreement. Rather surprisingly, failure to notify an agreement is not a criminal offence, and the operators concerned were simply required to give an undertaking not to continue the agreement or enter into other such agreements. It would seem that the system is designed to deter outrageous behaviour, and will therefore only catch the careless or ignorant. If policy is to promote competition, then the real problem lies with unwritten or tacit agreements on prices and market areas for which positive evidence is by definition unobtainable. As long as refusal to compete remains a legitimate commercial tactic, a more proactive policy will be difficult.

5. CONCLUSIONS

During the last five years, the local bus industry has been subjected to a high degree of scrutiny. Five of the first 29 references under the 1980 Competition Act and six of the 50 merger references between 1988 and 1990 involve local . The main reason for this is that the local bus market exhibits features of imperfect contestability. These features are relatively unusual (though some of the issues have been considered in cases involving local newspapers). The level of regulatory activity suggests that the authorities are not content to allow unrestrained commercial behaviour to determine the market outcome. This, of course, would be the appropriate stance if the market were highly contestable. Instead, detailed investigation of alleged predation and of mergers has been carried out. The economic analysis in the reports has been generally sound.

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Unfortunately, it has not proved possible to translate the conclusions of the analysis into positive actions designed to promote efficient market behaviour. In the field of anti-competitive practice, the problems are the very serious delays in the investigation process and the lack of penalties on offenders. On mergers, the position has been made very difficult by the apparent unwillingness of the SSTI to accept the MMC's interventionist recommendations, and his inability to enforce his own preferred solutions against the background of the Appeal Court ruling. Further legislation to clarify the reference rules for local monopoly and merger cases is required. Regulating the deregulated market has therefore proved to be a more extensive and difficult task than anticipated at the time of the 1985 Transport Act. The regulatory authorities have adopted a case by case or rule of reason approach in cases of anti- competitive behaviour and mergers. We would suggest that the way forward may be a modified rule of reason approach that incorporated certain guidelines or "brightlines", in line with the approach adopted towards restrictive practices. All of the following could enhance market contestability: requiring that bus companies above a certain size publish revenue and cost accounts in a prescribed manner administering access to terminals, and possibly network ticketing and information, through a third party public authority declaring "spoiling" commercial registrations against tenders won by small firms to be per se anti-competitive requiring that fare cuts or service enhancements made during competitive battles be maintained for at least one year. This would be an application of earlier proposals to limit incumbent response (Baumol, 1979; Williamson, 1977) introducing ex-post punitive measures such as triple damages against offenders, so as to attach a higher penalty to anti-competitive behaviour creating a rapid reaction squad capable of taking immediate action against per se anti-competitive behaviour and act as an ex ante warning to others examining the behaviour of some of the largest and most dominant firms through monopoly references to MMC. This might involve using economic models to determine whether price:output configurations were leading to serious resource misallocations. The Government therefore faces a dilemma. If it genuinely wishes to pursue its declared policy of promoting competition in the local bus industry, then it probably needs to adopt a more interventionist position, than hitherto. Given the industry's history of public service and its high visibility, we foresee a continuing requirement for a disproportionate amount of regulatory activity to be devoted to this industry. However, competition is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It is far from clear that a strategy of forcing the industry to behave competitively against its natural tendencies is feasible or in the public interest. There are two alternative strategies. The first is to recognise that the natural form of organisation is likely to involve a significant degree of local monopoly power or local market dominance. The

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Tegulatory problem is then to achieve a good pattern of prices and service for the public while maintaining competitive discipline on the dominant firm and controlling anti- competitive behaviour. The problems of identifying X-inefficiency, cross-subsidisation and predatory behaviour are sufficiently distinctive to suggest the need for a specialist regulatory agency (OFBUS) along the lines of the regulation for the practice of utilities of Telecom, Electricities, Gas and Water. However, there may be problems justifying the cost effectiveness of such a hands-on approach to an industry which, compared to the privatised utilities, exhibits very low levels of profitability. A second, and possibly more cost effective strategy, might therefore be to abandon the regime of "commercial" competition in favour of one based on competitive tender or franchise. Most of the regulatory problems discussed above would then be resolved. But that is another story. The clear message from this analysis is that if bus deregulation UK-style is being considered then issues of residual regulation must be addressed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Areeda, P., and Turner, D.F.. Predatory Pricing and Related Practices under Section 2 of the Sherman Act. Harvard Law Review 88. 1975. 697-733, 1

Baumol, W.J.. Quasi-Permanence of Price Reductions. A Policy for Prevention of Predatory Pricing. Yale Law Journal 89. 1979. 1-26

Beesley, M.E.. Collusion Predation and Merger in the UK Bus Industry. Journal of Transport Economics and Policy. 1990. 24, 3, 295-310.

Dodgson, J.S.. Predatory Behaviour in the Passenger Transport Industry. Second International Conference on Deregulation and Privatization in Passenger Transportation. Tampere, Finland. 1991.

Dodgson, J.S., Katsoulacos, Y., and Newton, C.R.. Modelling Bus Competition to Identify Predation. : University Transport Studies Group. 1991. (Unpublished)

Joskow, P.L., and Klevorick, A.R.. A Framework for Analysing Predatory Pricing Policy. Yale Law Journal 89. 1979. 213-270

Katsoulacos, Y.. Anti-trust Regulation and the Identification of Predation in Transportation Services. Second International Conference on Deregulation and Privatization in Passenger Transportation. Tampere, Finland. 1991.

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Mackie, P.J., and Preston, J.M.. The Local Bus Market: A Case Study of Regulatory Change. Aldershot: Avebury, 1992. (Forthcoming)

Morrison, S.A., and Winston, C.. Empirical Implications and Tests of the Contestability Hypothesis. Journal of Law and Economics. 1987

Office of Fair Trading.. Restrictive Trade Practices in the Bus Industry. : OFT, 1991

Preston, J.M.. Competition Policy and the Industry: The Case of Mergers. Second International Conference on Deregulation and Privatization in Passenger Transportation. Tampere, Finland. 1991

Williamson, O.E.. Predatory Pricing: A Strategic and Welfare Analysis. Yale Law Journal 87. 1977. 284-340

Utton, M.. Competition Policy and Local Bus Markets. London: NERA, 1991

Table 1 Local bus industry references under the competition act, 1980

Case (named after Market Share of Decision of Subsequent incumbent firm) the firm DGFT Action concerned (%) West Yorkshire Road Car (Bradford-Skipton) 40 NAC None

Highland Scottish Omnibus MMC Ref., (Inverness) 65 AC API South Yorkshire Transport (Sheffield) 88 AC None Kingston-upon-Hull Transport (Hull) 76 NAC None Southern Vectis Omnibus Co. (Isle of Wight) N/A AC U Key: AC = anti competitive, NAC = not anti competitive, API = against the public interest and U = undertaking Source: Utton, 1991

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Table 2 Merger Cases: Statistics used to determine jurisdiction market market assets of cost of population population share (%) share (%) acquiring acquisi- of of in in company dons reference competed reference competed (£m) (em) area (rn) area (m) area area Badgerline 12.534 7.616 1.5 0.915 82 91 Stagecoach - first case 53.566 0.550 1.141 0.362 41 85 South Yorks Transport (SYT) 22.734 3.296 1.815 0.780 50 81 Western not Travel 7.079 given 0.996 0.116 34 87 Stagecoach - second case 53.566 1.1 1.616 0.382 36 66 Caldaire 26.846 3.1 1.148 0.501 48 50

Table 3 Mergers Cases: Statistics on the extent of competition

number of of which % market share competing major firms firms commercial tendered

Badgerline 120 4 94 (1) 78 (1) Stagecoach - first case 50 3 43 28 South Yorks Transport 23 (2) 3 53 37 Western Travel 47 3 not given 47 Stagecoach - second case not given 5 38 32 Caldaire 74 5 51 41 (1) figures refer to only (2) figures refer to tendered services in South Yorkshire only ource: Preston,

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Table 4 MMC Recommendations in Six Merger Cases

BADGERLINE (Bristol) Merger found to be API but allowed to proceed, subject to the merged firm giving the following undertakings: (i) not to pursue aggressive registration policy against tenders won by other operators (ii) to subject tender results to independent audit. If revenues exceeded direct costs by more than 20%, the excess would be refunded to Avon County Council.

STAGECOACH I (Portsmouth) Merger found to be API but allowed to proceed with the following undertakings required: (i) publicly available annual report on costs and revenues of merged area (Portsmouth) operations (ii) on competed routes in Portsmouth area if fares were reduced or services increased, these changes to be maintained for at least one year but SSTI ordered divestment of the acquired firm.

SOUTH YORKSHIRE TRANSPORT (SYT) (Sheffield) Firm acquired four local operators, eliminating 50% of the competition it faced. MMC found the merger API and required divestment as a single entity. However SYT appealed successfully (see text).

WESTERN TRAVEL (Coventry/Leamington) Merger NAPI. Potential competition adequate discipline. No action.

STAGECOACH II (Hastings/Bexhill) MMC found merger API and recommended undertakings as in Stagecoach 1 plus no further acquisitions in reference area without prior notification to OFT. However SSTI again overruled, suggesting divestment. Outcome delayed pending SYT case.

CALDAIRE (SE Durham/Cleveland) MMC found merger API and again recommended undertakings as in Stagecoach ❑ plus two year freeze on service reductions and real fare increases in area SSTI again overruled in favour of divestment, but unable to enforce his policy.

API = Against the Public Interest NAPI = Not Against the Public Interest

Table 5 OFT Advice on various forms of commercial agreement

Type of agreement Likely view of OFT

Agreement on fares Anti-competitive, registrable, likely to be taken to Court

Travelcard schemes Not registrable.

Interavailability of tickets Not registrable provided no agreement on fares.

Routes and timetables Output fixing or market sharing registrable. likely to be referred to Court. Agreed timetables not registrable.

Territorial agreements Market-sharing- registrable

Information Non-registrable

Agreed bus stops Technically registrable but unlikely to affect competition.

Liveries Technically registrable but unlikely to affect competition ource:

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