OFT upholds £1.3m fine ruling
The office of Fair Trading has upheld the decision it took last July to impose a fine of £1.3m on Aberdeen Journals Ltd, the publisher of the Press & Journal, the Evening Express and the free weekly news paper the Aberdeen Herald & Post.
The fine came after a complaint and a consequent court ruling that Aberdeen Journals Ltd had acted unlawfully by offering local advertisers low prices for advertising space in its free sheet, the Aberdeen Herald & Post, in an attempt to put its rival title, the Aberdeen Independent out of business, by operating at a loss. The OFT ruling said that Aberdeen Journals was dominant in the marketplace in terms of local advertising space.
The OFT’s director general of fair trading John Vickers said: “Aberdeen Journals deliberately incurred losses in a persistent campaign to remove its only direct rival from the market. This was a serious infringement of the law and the penalty should act as a deterrent to others.”