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For what’s coming up to a dozen years now, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) – a non-ministerial governmental department formed after the Office of Fair Trading and Competition Commission were abolished – has been a largely behind-the-scenes arbiter of fairness.
Typically called into action to decide whether a proposed merger or acquisition could limit consumer choice, limit competition, or lead to increased customer costs, it’s locked horns with some of the largest corporations – ranging from Meta, to Microsoft. Much more recently – and with much more fanfare – it also announced it would be investigating Ticketmaster and ticket selling platforms more generally, after the high-profile expose of ‘dynamic pricing’ tactics for the sale of Oasis concert tickets last autumn.
But earlier this year – at the end of March to be precise – came the result of something of a first for the CMA. It gave its first verdict in a case looking at labour law – specifically freelancer pay. Sky, BT, IMG, ITV and BBC were all in the frame, and the result is a big one for four out of the five (BT, IMG, ITV and BBC), who were eventually fined – to the collective tune of £4.2 million.
Juliette Enser
Executive Director for Competition Enforcement, CMA
Unfair pay comparisons
The investigation was started following an approach Sky made to the CMA about the behaviour of its own sports broadcasting unit, and that of fellow broadcasters around the sharing of fees paid to freelance workers. These workers included everyone from the likes of camera operators, to sound technicians, as well as producers. Shared conversations, it was claimed, related to day rates, or special rates during holiday periods.
“Because we operate a leniency policy, whereby those who come forward to us are giving leniency and or no, or reduced fines for bringing malpractice to our attention, cases often come direct to us by the agents involved, rather than those who are impacted,” explains Juliette Enser, Executive Director for Competition Enforcement. “This was the case here, where Sky brought forward evidence about how it and four other organisations were sharing freelancer rates of pay.”
We consider that there are several no-go areas – and these include wage fixing
Although Enser says the CMA doesn’t ask what prompts companies to decide to come forward – and it doesn’t comment directly on who specifically brought a case forward and why – she acknowledges that in most cases, it’s “employees in the organisation that give rise to these problems occurring in the first place,” that typically start the ball rolling – in this case “those involved with hiring and setting pay rates.”
Could the whistle-blowers have been HR practitioners themselves? She doesn’t say, what is clear, is that what was being shared between the broadcasters was commercially sensitive information about freelancers pay (and how much should be paid), and the CMA found that this information was shared amongst the five organisations on 15 different occasions.
Says Enser: “Whilst we accept there is a fine line between organisations legitimately wanting to find out others are paying their freelancers as a form of benchmarking and meeting industry norms, we consider that there are several no-go areas – and these include wage fixing.”
