§ Mr. Haywardasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether the undertakings given following the Monopolies Commission report on the supply of colour film in 1966 have been reviewed.
§ Mr. Alex FletcherFollowing publication of the MC report on the supply of colour films in 1966. Kodak gave five undertakings to the Secretary of State. The Director General of Fair Trading has recently reviewed these undertakings and has recommended that Kodak should be released from two of them.
The undertakings concerned are the undertaking not to exceed a gross profit level of 61.5 per cent. of the value of sales and the undertaking to abandon resale price maintenance and to reduce recommended prices. 657W Regarding the first of these the Director General considers that it no longer places a real constraint on Kodak's pricing or provides useful information by which to monitor Kodak's performance. He considers the second undertaking was made redundant by Kodak's price reduction in 1966 and the resale prices legislation which imposes a general ban on the maintenance of minimum resale prices.
The three undertakings that the Director General recommends should remain in force are an undertaking not to discriminate between retail outlets for colour film products subject to normal commercial considerations; an undertaking to make colour films available to the retailer at prices both inclusive and exclusive of a charge for processing and an undertaking to consider genuine requests for technical help from independent processors who might wish to undertake the processing of Kodak colour films. Undertakings similar to the last two of these were also given by six other companies following the MMC report. The Director General recommends that the undertakings given by these other companies should also remain in force.
My right hon. Friend has accepted the Director General's recommendations that Kodak should be released from two of its undertakings but that the other three undertakings given by Kodak and the two undertakings given by the other companies should remain in force. The Director General will continue to keep the colour films market, including the remaining undertakings, under review.