AGN News: Roland and Korg hit with big fines in UK for price-fixing

News From London that Roland and Korg have been fined a combined total of £5.5m, which equates to $6.9 million US dollars, by the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK in 2 separate cases of price fixing.
The CMA hit Fender with a £4.5m fine back in January, bringing the total number of cases to 5 and and the total fines to £13.7m. Also caught in the crossfire was UK musical instrument retailer GAK who have also been fined more than £250,000. The judgement was levied after a price-fixing agreement between GAK and Yamaha was disclosed to the CMA by Yamaha in exchange for the latter’s immunity from fines for being the first to bring the conduct to the Authority’s attention.
This disclosure subsequently led to the CMA sending warning letters to dozens of other instrument suppliers and retailers and publishing an open letter to the industry writ large, reminding them of their legal responsibilities regarding Retail price management. The Competition and Markets Authority are also using a dedicated online tool they developed that automatically monitors price levels amongst retailers and detects any suspicious pricing activity. For more on this story, click the INFO button now.