UK Competition and Markets Authority Fined 880 thousand Pound on Leicester City FC For Anti-Competitive Arrangement with JD Sports

UK Competition and Markets Authority Fined 880 thousand Pound on Leicester City FC For Anti-Competitive Arrangement with JD Sports

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) fined Leicester City FC after it found that the football club and retailer JD Sports violated competition law by entering into an arrangement which limited competition in the sales of Leicester City-branded clothing, including replica kit, in the UK.

Leicester City FC and its parent companies have, under the settlement procedure, admitted Leicester City FC’s participation in the alleged arrangement.

The groups agreed to pay a fine under the CMA’s settlement policy of a maximum 880,000 pounds ($1.12 Million Approx). This includes a settlement discount from the fine that would have otherwise been imposed reflecting resource savings to the CMA as a result of Leicester City FC admitting to acting illegally and helping bring a swifter resolution to the CMA’s investigation.

The findings were addressed to Leicester City FC’s parent companies, as well as to the company itself. Due to the standard legal rules that parent companies have joint and several liability for competition law infringements; the CMA was of the view that it had no reason to believe, that the parent companies themselves were directly involved in the unlawful conduct.

JD Sports reported the illegal conduct and admitted its participation in the alleged conduct by way of a leniency application.

Therefore, CMA held that it will not receive a fine provided that it continues to co-operate and to comply with the other conditions of the CMA’s leniency policy.

As per the arrangement between Leicester City FC and JD Sports, in August 2018, it was deliberate that JD Sports would stop selling Leicester City-branded clothing online for the 2018/19 season.

In January 2019, that JD Sports would not undercut Leicester City in terms of online sales for the 2019/20 season by applying a delivery charge to all orders of Leicester City-branded clothing – disapplying its company-wide promotional offer of free online delivery for all orders over 70 pounds.

Thereafter, by July 2020, JD Sports would continue to apply delivery charges to online orders of Leicester City-branded clothing for the 2020/21 season as well. This continued until at least 26 January 2021.

Therefore, for the suspected anti-competitive behaviour, on 23 September 2021, the CMA launched an investigation under section 25 of the Competition Act 1998 (CA98) into suspected breaches of competition law by Leicester City Football Club Limited and JD Sports Fashion Plc, together with their affiliates.

The investigation concerned suspected infringements of Chapter I of the CA98 in relation to the sale of Leicester City-branded products and merchandise in the United Kingdom.