Fender fined for price fixing

[Drax]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/22/guitar-maker-fender-fined-45m-for-price-fixing-in-uk?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
 

 

[Al Krow]

Well they won't be doing that again in a hurry then! 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Al Krow

[nige1968]

Reckon they’ll raise prices to compensate?

[Baceface]

And that was the result of a plea bargain:

Quote

The penalty would have been £14.2m had Fender not admitted to the offence under the CMA’s leniency and settlement procedures. 

I lack the knowledge to know if the fine is a good thing. On the face of it, it would seem to be excellent news but this is where someone far better informed points out that the decision will have some terrible knock-on effect that I hadn't considered.

[Osiris]

This just popped up on my phone, thought it might be of interest to some of you. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guitar-maker-fined-4-5m-for-illegally-preventing-price-discounts

[DorsetBlue]

Also from another source:

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/01/guitar-company-fined-45m-for-anti-competitive-behaviour/

[2elliot]

Good. I wouldn't be surprised if a few other manufacturers get pulled as well.

[thodrik]

6 minutes ago, 2elliot said:

Good. I wouldn't be surprised if a few other manufacturers get pulled as well.

Oh yes, I'm sure that there are high level meetings at certain manufacturers taking place as we speak to discuss 'communication protocol' and 'historic communication data purging initiatives' after reading this: 

"The CMA also found that certain Fender employees deliberately tried to cover up their actions by recording as little as possible in writing. However, the investigation uncovered emails and texts from Fender’s IT servers and mobile phones, which proved the illegal behaviour."

 

 

[Guest]

I’d be interested to know what Fender’s annual UK turnover amounts to - This fine must be a sizeable proportion?

[Teebs]

Good to know that they've been fined £4.5m, shame the money won't go to those customers who overpaid, and presumably will go to the gubberment instead, who always spend other people's money wisely...

[kodiakblair]

Should have hit them with the full whack £14 million fine and jailed the heid man.

I'm sick of companies in this country taking the p!$$ and getting away with it.

[Nicko]

Does this mean I can sue the big F for illegally forcing me to pay an artificially high price for the last guitar I bought?  No, thought not.

[Guest]

Funnily enough, last time I looked (a couple of weeks ago) an Ultra Jazz V was £1959 on their site. It is now £2,089  

[Phil Starr]

Of course the other big price fix/anti-competitive policy is that to stock Fender (or Gibson) retailers have to buy a minimum (but large) value of stock, effectively locking out small local music shops from stocking new Fenders as the entry price is too high for them to afford. It also means the medium sized outlets would have to choose between Fender and Gibson with only the biggest outlets able to afford to stock both. Either way the chance most of us have of going in and trying instruments and comparing them and then being able to shop around is highly constrained. In the meantime both companies only need to service a limited no. of outlets who effectively become main dealers tied to policies controlled by Fender.

Fining American companies is an interesting policy, I wonder if Mr Trump knows about it?

If only there were some sort of Europe wide trading association we could be part of.

[Geek99]

But that would give fender the chance to do it all over Europe and get away with it for decades with no action at all taken at a trading bloc level - hang on, that happened ...

Edited January 22, 2020 by Geek99

[miles'tone]

I'd never buy a new Fender anyway. Used every time for me. 

[Cuzzie]

Worst kept secret finally out

[merello]

When I asked the sales assistant if I could get a discount on a fender bass in January...”everyone knows they don’t let us!”

[paul_c2]

Personally amazed a company would be stupid enough to do it. It can't be just one rogue employee - what were the others thinking? Just go along with the illegal idea? 

Reminds me of the VW emissions scandal.

[Pseudonym]

5 hours ago, paul_c2 said:

Personally amazed a company would be stupid enough to do it. It can't be just one rogue employee - what were the others thinking? Just go along with the illegal idea?

They're real outlaws, these rock 'n' roll hooligans.

You'd never get this kind of misconduct from the Stradivari.

[FinnDave]

55 minutes ago, Pseudonym said:

They're real outlaws, these rock 'n' roll hooligans.

You'd never get this kind of misconduct from the Stradivari.

Nonsense, they're on the fiddle as well

[MacDaddy]

Are Bono and The Edge still on the Fender board? How could they let this happen? 

Will they have to cough up?

[Monkey Steve]

didn't we get into this on another thread a while back?  Maybe not Fender?

The defence offered was that as a manufacturer it makes little difference to them because they get the wholesale price no matter what and actually letting sellers drop the price means more sales for them, but they were trying to maintain minimum prices offered on line so that they were comparable to what bricks and mortar shops would have to charge because of their overheads

[Lfalex v1.1]

In every iteration of this news I've read, it only mentions "guitars" 

Does this mean we, as bassists, are exempt from Fender's retail price maintenance?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No? 

 

Thought not..

[Low End Bee]

On the Gov website

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guitar-maker-fined-4-5m-for-illegally-preventing-price-discounts

They got a discount on the fine too...

They were also fined £25,000 for hiding notebooks in their East Grinstead head office according to the Guardian which may be the most Reggie Perrin Grot industries thing ever.

 

Edited January 23, 2020 by Low End Bee