Agent fined the most in Burnham-on-Sea fee fixing scandal speaks out

One of the four agents which last week agreed to pay fines totalling £370,000 following a Competition and Markets Authority investigation into price fixing in the Somerset seaside town of Burnham-on-Sea has given its reaction to the case for the first time following the announcement. The agents – which included Greenslade Taylor Hunt (GTH), Abbot and Frost, Gary Berryman and West Coast Property Services – admitted breaking competition law by colluding to set a minimum 1.5% commission fee for sales in and around the town. Charles Clarke (pictured, left), Chairman of GTH, has said that the fine covered activities during 2014 and 2015 by the company’s local business. He said that GTH cooperated with the CMA fully and that as soon as concerns were raised by the watchdog, an investigation of all offices and departments within the firm was undertaken. GTH is to pay the largest proportion of the total fine, at £186,054. “We are entirely satisfied that this issue resulted from the wholly misguided and inappropriate actions of one GTH Partner, acting entirely alone, at one branch of our group and that no other office or department was involved in any way whatsoever,” he told Burnham-on-Sea.com. “The partner’s actions…

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