§ Mr. GibbTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many requests there have been for the Director General of Fair Trading to examine agreements under section 12 of the Competition Act 1998. [110365]
§ Dr. HowellsNone. Parties cannot make use of the notification provisions in Part I of the Act until the Act itself comes fully into force on 1 March 2000. The transitional arrangements in schedule 13 of the Act allow parties to agreements made between the time the Act received Royal Assent (9 November 1998) and 1 March 2000 to notify those agreements to the Director General for guidance. To date (15 February) there have been 10 such notifications.