CMA

Investors Chronicle, 23 Feb 2021, Platform services creak with customer surge

https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/news/2021/02/22/platform-service-creaks-with-customer-surge/ Investors Chronicle wrote up the chronic service problems of the platforms and included this quote from Cliff Weight of ShareSoc: Cliff Weight, director of individual investors campaigning group ShareSoc, said “Hargreaves Lansdown’s customers having to wait 34 minutes to talk to someone is awful and should be unacceptable. The Financial Conduct Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority looked at platforms a couple of years ago, but seemed to have allowed high cost, poor service, quasi-monopolistic behaviour to continue. They need ...

Supermarket Winners and Losers – Ocado, M&S, Waitrose, Sainsburys and ASDA

As a recent purchaser of Ocado (OCDO) shares I have received the notice of a General Meeting to approve the deal with Marks & Spencer (MKS). The agreement is the formation of a new joint venture and will effectively replace the previous partnership with Waitrose (part of John Lewis) to provide own-brand products. This looks a very positive deal for Ocado if you read the detail as the Waitrose deal was restrictive in some regards and Waitrose has also been developing ...

Audit Market Shake-Up, Ocado on TV, and Judges Scientific Presentation

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have issued their final recommendations to improve competition in the audit market after an earlier public consultation. This follows widespread concerns over the dominance of the big four audit firms, the lack of apparent competition on price or quality, and repeated complaints about the quality of audits following several big and small company failures. Audit firms seem to have got off relatively lightly if the CMA’s recommendations are implemented by the Government. Here’s a brief ...

Response to CMA Audit Market Study Update Paper

The UK Shareholders Association and ShareSoc have made a joint submission to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in response to the update paper they have issued relating to their audit market study. Our submission is available here: CMA - Response to Update Paper Final The key points we made were: The need for radical change The Siren voices, from those involved who argue for limited change, should be ignored. The quality of audits needs to be improved. Peer review is a good ...

CMA, Ofgem and Data Protection Rules

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have been tackling the lack of competition in the market for household utility supplies for some time. They are concerned that many customers have not switched suppliers for some years. Stuck on a basic tariff, they may be paying several hundred pounds a year over the market rates available by shopping around (for example by using price comparison web sites). They were proposing a price cap for such tariffs, which would of course not be a ...