UK model agencies found guilty of price-fixing

A team of English acting organizations that signify titles such as Yasmin Le Bon, Sophie Dahl and Stella Tennant have been penalized £1.5m for colluding to fix costs billed to suppliers, style manufacturers and other customers.

The UK competitors regulator has penalized FM Designs, Designs 1, Leading, Surprise and Viva, along with market business whole body the Organization of Design Providers (AMA), for price-fixing acting solutions for at least couple of decades from Goal 2013.

The Competition and Marketplaces Power (CMA) found that the organizations and their association “systematically interchanged information and mentioned prices”, in some cases accepting to fix lowest costs or agree with the fact a typical strategy to costs.

The cost collusion impacted customers such as standard stores, online style suppliers and customer products manufacturers that use models to front their products and appear in ad strategies.

The regulator’s research researched costs methods across a wide variety of acting projects, from style journal launches providing models charges of a few hundred weight to ad strategies providing more than £10,000.

The CMA said that the collusion and cost solving did not increase to the solutions of so-called “top models”.

The excellent and judgment is greatly destructive to the popularity of the acting organizations and their market. Leading showed Naomi Campbell for 17 decades, while Surprise found Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne, although all three are now with other organizations. Designs 1 symbolizes Sophie Dahl and Yasmin Le Bon, while Viva’s models include Stella Tennant and Natalia Vodianova.

The two greatest charges were billed to Surprise (£491,000) and Designs One (£394,000). FM Designs, which has been given a £251,00 excellent, closed down a few months ago.



Models 1, Leading and Surprise said in a combined declaration that they meant to attraction against the judgment. “The CMA’s results are completely wrong,” the organizations said.

The organizations said the CMA has unsuccessful to understand the part of the acting organization, which is in part to secure the passions of models. They said their activities were not meant to make up or fix costs but to “protect the passions of models and also make sure a maintainable market which advantages customers, the economic system and society”.

“We achieved our choice to attraction the CMA’s results without doubt,” said David Horner, the md of Designs 1. “The CMA is penalising acting organizations for looking for to keep professional requirements within the market while also defending the passions of younger and insecure people.”

Le Bon acknowledged the AMA with “nurturing and protecting” her at the beginning of her profession and said it “taught [me] how to become the model I am today”.

“Had it not been for the information, encounter and professionalism and reliability of the organization I would not have continual a profession in the market,” she said. “It needs efforts and dedication to develop a profession and the AMA, with its agents, have always desired to secure younger models from exploitation, but also from customers who are under stress to pay progressively low charges.”

Storm model Hannah Cassidy said the AMA’s assistance had been “essential because the stress and risks of exploitation are real”.

“I have helped from their encounter in discussing prices, working circumstances, circumstances and picture use,” she said. “Agents enhance but also secure models from unjust agreement and exclusivity circumstances which could damage their professions. They also make sure I get compensated promptly.”

Viva, which was penalized £245,000, also strenuously declines wrongdoing.



“Viva highly declines it decided to fix lowest costs or that it decided a typical strategy to costs,” said a speaker for the organization. “To date, the CMA has created no proof to show the perform which is the topic of the CMA’s Decision had any affect the prices models showed by Viva obtained for assignments; this is because it did not have any such impact.”

The CMA said that the AMA and the organizations also desired to guide other associates of the market whole body by consistently providing email circulars, known as AMA Signals, encouraging them to avoid the costs provided by customers on the reasons they were too low.

“When companies collude rather than contend the final nonwinners are customers,” said David Wotton, the seat of the Case Decision Team at the CMA, which determined. “This type of behavior damages the economic system and deprives companies and customers of the advantages of competitors.”