CMA hit with legal threat over trading name order

A legal row has broken out over plans to reform the veterinary sector – just weeks before the measures are due to be finalised.

The Progressive Veterinary Association (PVA) has warned it is “minded to seek” a judicial review of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) plans unless its concerns about the current proposals are addressed.

Several other veterinary bodies have also joined forces to attack what they see as the authority’s “contestable” and often untrue claims about medicine pricing.

But the CMA itself has remained tight lipped, as work to complete the final order before its statutory deadline on 23 September continues.

Transparency

The legal dispute is focused on the regulator’s plans to ensure public transparency of business ownership information.

Under its draft orders, published in July, the CMA advocated the display of ownership information including the name of what it called the “main entity” or its trading name and associated logos.

The documents said those details should be displayed “in a clear and prominent manner” both at the premises and on the websites of each first opinion practice and other relevant service providers within a group or network.

But the PVA argues that basic information “must identify and catalogue the ultimate controlling entity so as to adequately inform pet owners of the nature, name and size of the genuine ‘main entity’” instead of providing what it described as “a misleading brand name”.

Refused

It claims the authority has so far refused to consider changes based on a legal position it described as “neither convincing nor appropriate”.

And its final submission to the authority warned: “If there are no substantive changes to the wording of the orders to ensure that the public are to be made simply and easily aware of the genuine ultimate controlling ownership of practices and other relevant services, then the PVA is minded to seek judicial review.”

The CMA has declined to respond directly to the warning, claiming it could not comment or speculate on legal matters.

But the PVA’s intervention came just days after a coalition of veterinary groups, led by the BVA, warned the CMA’s approach to medicine sales risked damaging public trust and leading to further abuse of practice staff.

Support

In a joint consultation response with the BSAVA, BVNA, SPVS and VMG, it stressed support for the idea of displaying standardised literature in practices that was produced and distributed by the RCVS.

But it rejected the text of one proposed poster from the CMA which claimed medicines “may be significantly cheaper online”, arguing it was “not neutral or factual and is in fact contestable”.

The document added: “Specifically, ‘significantly cheaper’ is both subjective and relative, and in many cases will simply not be true.

“We are of the view that requiring practices to display the proposed text is likely to damage trust and the vet-client relationship, and in some cases could incite verbal abuse and unnecessary altercation in the consultation room and reception.”

Respondents

The CMA has thanked all consultation respondents for their submissions and said it was analysing their feedback before publishing the final order “in due course”.

But BVNA senior vice-president Lyndsay Hughes said there remained “some significant areas that require further clarification and refinement” to ensure they met the authority’s stated objectives in a manner that was workable in practice and benefited both clients and practice teams.