RHA is urged b et benchmark rates
Page 6
Page 7
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• The Road Haulage Association has been urged to publish a new version of its recommended benchmark rates for its members — even if it means risking prosecution under restrictive practices laws.
The association has not printed such tables since 1978 when the Office of Fair Trading advised that doing so could contravene the Restrictive Practices Act of 1976.
But the increasing number of hauliers who face going out of business in the recession need a guide to how efficiently they can operate, leading transport lawyer Jonathan Lawton told delegates at the Tipcon conference in Harrogate last week.
He urged the RHA to publish tables of operating costs for different sectors of the industry — if necessary stating that there was no profit figure included in the recommendations.
But in the same debate Andrew White of the OFT warned that any move by the RHA toward suggesting rates that members should charge customers would be referred to the Restrictive Practices Court. The OFT on its own can only make recommendations but the RHA is unlikely to risk the cost of taking the issue to the court. However, it is considering the option of publishing tables of information only, including likely operational costs and past figures.
The Restrictive Practices Act says that all pricing recommendations by a trade association to its members must be passed by the OFT — and almost all such guides are rejected.
The OFT also vets third party arrangements, for example between a group of hauliers and a large customer such as British Steel or Tarmac. The RHA used to arrange these, but they were abandoned following an OFT challenge in 1984. Even codes of practice which take the form of a contract between customers and certain groups of operators must be sanctioned by the OFT. The RHA has just had its revised conditions of carriage registered by the office.
About 45% of all companies going out of business at the moment were hauliers, Lawton told the conference.
It was not in the public interest that so many transport firms should go under as other businesses got hurt, he said.
Publishing information in the RHA magazine could not be classed as an "uncompetitive agreement," he added, because any customer who did not want to pay suggested rates could simply go down the road to another haulier.
"Many people are operating without the slightest idea of what their costs are," he said. "To claim that an operator can
work out his costs without assistance is folly — there would be no question of a cartel. Even with undercutting by other hauliers it must be better for a haulier to know what in an ideal world he should be charging."
RHA tipper group manager Kerry Spencer says it is crazy that trade magazines can publish their own recommended rates, while an association is banned from doing so.
White said that the OFT was "not in the business of trying to protect individual firms or individual inefficiencies". He urged the RHA to talk to the OFT before publishing figures. But he warned that even "recommendations" by an association could contravene the act.