Stricter conditions for agents’ prices

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 13

Stricter conditions for agents’ prices

PA Wellington The Commerce Commission has decided to approve the collective pricing practice of stock and statior agents but under stride conditions.

The commission says tha because the new condition; laid down are more specific than previously there is more likelihood of price competition developing between members of the Stock and Station Agents’ Association.

The commission has turned down a Federated Farmers request that it order a reappraisal of the stock and station industry. It says it does not have the power to order the Examiner of Commercial Practices to make such a reappraisal.

The commission’s decision does, however, note that the examiner could undertake such a reappraisal if he thinks it necessary, and deliver a report to the commission.

A hearing was held in late March and early April into the Stock and Station Agents’ Association collective pricing arrangement after a complaint by Federated Farmers that the association had failed to modify the arrangement as ordered by the commission in 1978. The commission had ord-

ered the association to change the scale of fees and charges issued to its members from a fixed scale to a maximum fee scale.The association, on the other hand, said that revoking the approval would disadvantage most farmers, particularly the smaller ones in the more remote areas. It did not agree with the federation that a graduated scale of charges was practical to implement.

But the Examiner of Commercial Practices had recommended that the commission replace its 1978 conditional approval with a new approval, subject to extra conditions. The Stock and Station Agents’ Association had agreed with this during

conciliation talks with the examiner.

'• The conditions laid down order the.association to issue a maximum fees scale to its members within three months, > and requires members to revoke any rules which clash with the requirement that the fee scale is a maximum one only. Mr P. Elworthy, junior vice-president of Federated Farmers, said farmers would be disappointed at the commission’s decision not to revoke the collective pricing agreement.

The federation wanted the collective practice revoked to allow a more price-com-petitive environment to develop within the industry, he said.