Reports of Committees
| Published date | 01 January 1956 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1956.tb00345.x |
| Date | 01 January 1956 |
REPOHTS
OF
COMMITTEES
THE
FIRST
GENERAL REPORT
OF
THE
MONOPOLIES
COMMISSION’
THE
first nine published reports
of
the Monopolies Commission
relate to investigations into matters referred to
it
by the Board
of Trade pursuant to section
2
of the Monopolies Act,
1948.
Each
reference
of
this kind deals with the supply
or
export of a specified
description of goods
or
the application of a specified process, and
in each case the Commission investigate the industry
or
trade in
question.= Action taken by the Government in terms of the Act is
conhed to the branch of trade
or
industry which has been investi-
gated. This process of individual reference, investigation, report
and Government action has come to be
known
as the case-by-case
method. Its prominent place in the monopolies legislation reflects
the general feeling in Parliament in
1948
that monopoly and restric-
tive practices are not necessarily against the public interest and that
therefore cases should be investigated individually and assessed and
dealt with
on
their merits.
However, there is provision for another kind of inquiry and
report
in
section
15
of the legislation of
1948
(Reports
on
General
Questions). This section, which did not appear in the original Bill,
authorises the Board of Trade to
‘(
require the Commission to
sub-
mit
to them a report
on
the general effect
on
the public interest
of
practices of a specified class, being practices which in the opinion
of
the Board are commonly adopted as a result of,
or
for the
purpose of preserving
”
monopoly conditions as defined in the Act.’
There is a proviso that the Board of Trade shall not make such
general references
((
unless they are satisfied that practices of [the
specified] class have been dealt with, in relation to goods of
particular descriptions, by previous reports of the Commission and
that
it
is expedient that the views of the Commission in relation to
practices of that class should be formulated in a general report.”
The first part of the proviso seems to have been inserted after the
Opposition in the House of Commons had stressed the undesirability
*
Mono
lies and Restrictive Practices Commission
:
Collective Discrimination
-A %port
on
Exclusive Dealing, Collective Boycotts, Aggregated Rebates
and other Discriminatory Trade Practices, Cmd.
9604,
H.M.S.O.,
1965.
Price
3s.
Bd. net. limit the inquir
to
particular practices within
an
industry or
to
the supp!y
of
the
class
or
goods in a specified part
of
the
United Kingdom. Both these limitations were imposed
on
the inquiry
reported in the Report
on
the Supply
of
Buildingd in the Greeter London
Area
(1964).
a
Broadly, these conditions prevail when one
firm
or
a
group
of
firms
acting
together supply one-third or more
of
the goods
in
question.
68
2
The Board
of
Trade
ma
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