Easy targets

There is coverage and more coverage from across the pond about the Competition Commission efforts to curb the power or retailers in the UK.

From The Scotsman:

THE Competition Commission today outlined a series of measures to give shoppers at better deal at UK supermarkets. The watchdog outlined its intention to overhaul the planning system and to stamp out the practice of "land banking" as part of an 18-month inquiry into the grocery market. The Commission also raised concerns over the relationship between supermarkets and suppliers in provisional findings of the probe and said changes were needed to help offer greater protection to suppliers.

Here is a retrospective look at the issue from the Guardian Unlimited:

Independent retailers were, and still are, disappearing at a rate of 2,000 shops a year and since 1987 have seen their market share halve from 17% to 9%.
There was unrest about the impact the immense buying power of the biggest chains was having on small suppliers and, in particular, Britain's hard-pressed farming community.
The campaigners claimed that suppliers were too scared to complain for fear of losing key contracts.
Although the authorities agreed there was a need for action, the conclusions of the first major Competition Commission inquiry in the year 2000 were met with derision.
Inexplicably, the commission's narrow definition of the grocery market did not include convenience stores, even though supermarkets were already making rapid inroads into the sector with their own smaller outlets.
Working practices
But the greatest criticism was reserved for the proposed Supermarket Code of Practice which campaigners insisted was simply unworkable. Most controversial was the idea that suppliers must blow the whistle on alleged bullying practices from their biggest customers, the supermarkets.
Not surprisingly, no suppliers came forward and two years after the code was finally thrashed out and introduced to a sceptical industry, the Office of Fair Trading announced a review.

TK: Relying on suppliers to come forward and air complaints about buyers is a nonstarter, whether in the UK or the US. While suppliers may wait for a Golden Age when they will exert equal power to buyers, there will continue to be an inexorable accumulation of clout by retailers and halting efforts by governments to manage the process.