Electrical retailers receive issues letter on extended warranties

The Competition Commission (CC) has today sent a letter setting out the issues under investigation in its inquiry on extended warranties (EWs) on domestic electrical goods (DEGs). The CC has provisionally concluded that Dixons Group plc may be a scale monopolist. The CC has also provisionally concluded that complex monopoly may exist consisting of the larger retailers of DEGs (Dixons, Comet, Powerhouse, Argos Retail Group, Littlewoods and MFI, together with the insurance companies involved with them in providing EWs: Cornhill, Landmark, Pinnacle and London General). More details can be found here. The CC is due to report its final findings by July 2003. Frontier is advising Comet.