By Ashley Young-
A Somerset Estate agent has been disqualified today after a four day trial last month.
Mr Michael Martin was today disqualified by the High Court from acting as a director or being concerned in the management of a company for 7 years. The court found that he had contributed to a breach of competition law by his former company, which owned and ran Gary Berryman Estate Agents in Burnham-On-Sea.
This is the first application in the Uk for a competition disqualification order to come to trial. Guilty parties usually accept the verdict of the Competition Markets Authority, but this director decided to oppose it.
The case against Mr Martin followed an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which found in 2017 that 6 estate agents in the Burnham-on-Sea area in Somerset, with an estimated combined market share of up to 95%, agreed to fix a minimum commission rate of 1.5% for residential estate agency services.
Illegal cartels among Estate Agents in the Uk are not uncommon, but a doomed end always befalls them when caught. In this case, the illegal agreement, lasted for a little over a year from February 2014, and meant that local homeowners were denied the chance of getting a better deal when selling their property.
Mr Martin was not concerned with day-to-day sales, nor did he attend any of the meetings with the other estate agents at which the fee fixing agreement was made. Nevertheless, Mr Martin was made aware of the cartel agreement and took no steps to prevent or end Gary Berryman’s participation, thereby contributing to the breach of competition law.
Misconduct
The court concluded in its judgement today that Mr Martin’s misconduct fell below the standards of probity and competence appropriate for persons fit to be directors of companies, making Mr Martin unfit to be involved in the management of a company.
Mr Martin is the fourth director to be disqualified for their role in the estate agency cartel in Burnham-on-Sea. Three other directors gave formal undertakings not to act as a director of a company for periods of between 3 and 5 years. Arrogant Mr Martin refused to do so, and the CMA issued court proceedings against him in February 2019.
Michael Grenfell, the CMA’s Executive Director of Enforcement, said:
”Agreeing prices with competitors is one of the most serious ways in which a company can break competition law. It keeps prices or fees artificially high, harming individuals, businesses and the wider economy.
Company directors have a critical responsibility to make sure their companies don’t take part in this kind of anti-competitive behaviour.
Today’s court order sends a clear message to company directors: even if you are not directly involved in the breach, you can still be held accountable for it. If you have information about a breach, as a director you must take all reasonable steps to prevent it. If you don’t, you risk disqualification.
Today’s disqualification order brings the total number of directors disqualified following a CMA investigation to 19.
Only yesterday, Thursday,The Eye Of Media.Com reported how another banned company director Neil Mckenzie was feeling suicidal after £200k fine following breach of competition rules.He was one of two Berkshire Directors banned for forming an illegal cartel
In a separate case last month, the CMA secured the disqualification of 2 Berkshire estate agent directors, whose companies were found to have taken part in an illegal price fixing cartel in Wokingham, Winnersh, Crowthorne, Bracknell and Warfield.