Office of Fair Trading - Reputation

Reputation

The OFT has been criticized for being ineffective and for many of its investigations leading to no action, in contrast to the more vigorous approach of US (United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division) and European Union (DG COMP of the European Commission) regulators. Criticism has been levied, among others, in the cases of:

• Supermarkets
• Oil companies retail sales / petrol - in October 2008 the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown threatened oil companies with an OFT investigation unless lower oil prices were passed to consumers; this was despite several OFT investigations in the past giving the industry a clean bill of health.

The National Audit Office issued a report in March 2009 on the OFT's competition enforcement work which indicated progress in 7 out of 10 objectives, but also concluded:

...So whilst the OFT has improved the value for money it provides, there remains scope for further improvement.

According to the same report, in 2007-08 the OFT estimated that its competition enforcement work led to direct savings to consumers worth £77m per year and that its market studies work had saved consumers £98m in 2007-08; the OFT costs for these areas of work in the same year were approximately £26million of its £78m expenditure in 2007-8.