The government has rebuffed BPF appeals to review ‘”unfair” charges levied by the Office of Fair Trading on property deals.
Under the present system, OFT automatically investigates transactions between companies if more than £70m of assets changes hands. All companies have to pay the £10,000 whether or not the deal is referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
BPF wrote to ministers in September arguing that is it unfair for OFT to apply rules designed to regulate company mergers to straightforward property acquisitions.
But, in a terse reply, DTI junior minister Kim Howells wrote: “There are no current plans, however, either to alter the threshold in the assets test, or to amend the regime for non-newspaper merger fees in such a way that it would cease to apply equally, and on the same basis, to mergers in any sector of industry or commerce.”
BPF deputy director Richard Kauntze said: “The government has refused to consider the question of fairness. If there are good reasons for rejecting our request, they have not articulated it. The reality is this is an effective way for raising useful income so they do not want to make an exception for the property industry. They can’t justify it rationally.”
