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Competition Commission clears Ashley’s empire

An acquisition made by Sports Direct International - the retail empire controlled by Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley - has been formally cleared by The Competition Commission (CC).

In 2008 the company bought 31 JJB Sports stores in a move which was controversial because the sales happened while Chris Ronnie - a former employee and friend of Ashley - was chief executive of JJB.

The firm has always maintained that this did not effect the way he ran JJB, while the sales were also deemed controversial due to claims that JJB disposed of successful stores to Sports Direct.

In its final report published yesterday the CC ruled that it does not expect the acquisitions to lead to a substantial lessening of competition (SLC) nor any adverse effects for customers. This ruling confirms the inquiry’s provisional findings, which were published last month.

Chairman of the inquiry group and CC deputy chairman, Diana Guy said: “We do not believe there will be higher prices or a reduction in quality and choice for consumers as a result of these store acquisitions. Sports Direct and JJB are undoubtedly each other’s closest competitors nationally and this has not changed as a result of the transfer of a relatively small number of stores.

“What we have found is that the prices and range on offer in any individual Sports Direct store are not significantly affected by whether there is a nearby JJB store or not but, rather, depend on the degree of overall competition between the two retailers at the national level.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .