East Midlands Airport admits to fixing car parking pricing

East Midlands International Airport Limited (EMIA) and Prestige Parking have admitted to breaking the law by fixing the price of car parking at East Midlands Airport, it has emerged, but have escaped a £12.5m fine.

An investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) found that EMIA and Prestige agreed that Prestige should not sell its car parking services at the airport at below a minimum price, which was linked to the price of EMIA’s own car parking services. The CAA says that EMIA imposed this requirement as a condition of allowing Prestige to access facilities at the airport between (at the latest) October 2007 and September 2012. Without this access, Prestige would not have been able to provide car parking services to its customers on the airport site. The CAA has also found that the companies exchanged information about their prices and that EMIA actively monitored Prestige’s prices.

Competition law does not allow independent businesses to make arrangements, such as those between EMIA and Prestige, which may damage competition. All businesses, including airport operators are required to comply with competition law and must be aware of the potential harmful consequences for their businesses and consumers of agreeing to set or align their prices.

EMIA and its ultimate owner Manchester Airports Group Plc (MAG), which is the UK’s third largest airport operator, would have had to pay a fine of almost £12.5m as a result of this decision. However, the company “proactively disclosed details of the agreement” under the Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) leniency programme before the CAA investigation began. As EMIA also confessed to participation in the illegal agreement and co-operated throughout the investigation, the fine was reduced to zero in line with the CMA’s policy on leniency.

Following the investigation, MAG has agreed to set up a programme to ensure ongoing compliance with competition law within its business and among staff. It has also agreed to review existing concession contracts that EMIA has entered into, to ensure that they do not break the law on anti-competitive agreements.

Prestige, which was a much smaller airport car parking provider than EMIA, also confessed to having broken competition law and co-operated fully with the CAA’s investigation. The company is no longer trading and therefore the CAA will not impose a fine on it. Both parties agreed to follow a streamlined procedure which enabled the CAA to make its decision more efficiently and more quickly.

A statement from East Midlands Airport said: “We are sorry that this situation occurred and have introduced procedures to ensure that this cannot happen again.

“As soon as we became aware of the issue in 2013, we immediately informed the competition authorities and we have subsequently cooperated fully with their investigation.

“The parking operator in question operated a small premium parking facility at East Midlands Airport between October 2007 and September 2012.

“We are committed to continuing to offer our customers the car parking services they want at highly competitive prices.”

Richard Moriarty, director of markets and consumers at the CAA, said: “Competition at airports is crucial to ensure that consumers benefit from choice and value for the whole passenger journey, including for services such as car parking at the airport. The fact that an airport operator owns land at the airport on which an independent business operates, does not mean that the airport can dictate the price of services sold by that independent business.

“This is the CAA’s first competition investigation and we found that both parties independently identified that their agreement might harm competition but failed to act on it. It is vital that airports and providers of services at airports understand and comply with competition law. This case should serve as a clear sign that we are prepared to take action to protect consumers wherever necessary and companies should be well aware that they could face a significant fine if they break competition law.”