Burgess v OFT, 2005 CAT 25
Citation:Burgess v OFT, 2005 CAT 25
Rule of thumb 1: If there is a facility which you need to use in order to run your business, and it is being refused, is this allowed? No, this is not allowed. This is called a ‘refusal to supply’ and is a breach of competition law.
Rule of thumb 2: If you are a funeral service, and a crematorium refuses to allow you to use their facilities, is there anything you can do? Yes, this is a breach of the refusal to supply doctrine of competition law.
Judgment:
the facts were that a funeral service provider was not allowed to use a crematorium. The other crematorium was too far away which meant that it was not possible. This was deemed to be a breach of refusal to supply principle by a dominant company, ‘In a case such as the present, intervention under the Chapter II prohibition should not therefore be seen, as the OFT seemed to suggest, as merely protecting a competitor, but from the point of view of the wider interest of preserving effective competition for the ultimate benefit of consumers. Whilst Burgess is not entitled to be protected against normal market forces, it is in our view under the Act not entitled to be eliminated as an effcieint operator in the market by the abusive practices of a dominant firm’, paragraph 322.
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.