The smacking down of Wottakars, OFT-style

For those who’ve been following this story as much as I have (which, I grant, is probably not too many) the Office of Fair Trading has finally released its full text version of the decision to refer the proposed takeover of Ottakar’s by HMV to the Competition Commission. Ultimately, the OFT’s argument is that “the merger may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within a market or markets in the United Kingdom.”

But did the “unusually high number of complaints,” primarily from publishers, make much of a difference? Not exactly: “the OFT is of the view that the available evidence does not support any of the theories they advance, many of which are speculative in nature.”

Honestly, if those last few words don’t sum up the publishing world, I don’t know what does…

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