There is a serious error in the opening of the commission’s report: the sales figures of a major retailer were either misquoted by M. Charié and the record of what he said was an accurate record, or, an error was made during the transcription of an otherwise accurate account of the hearing. It consists of a total in billions being rendered in millions. It is an error anyone could have made, since we are all capable of making gaffes like that. What matters is that we untangle the original instance and ensure that there can be no repetition.
The opening pages of the Charié report (vol 1, p17) carries a parallel message, likening a distortion of competition to a pin left behind in an armchair. No matter how well-appointed the chair, a single pin can render it unuseable. (montage: Urban Food Chains)
Charié was both surprised and impressed by the quality and quantity of replies to the commission’s questionnaire for the coming weeks. He noted that many were hand-written and often from senior management across a wide range of sectors. While the captains of industry, large and small, were keen to see fair play, there was an unfortunate degree of flexibility in the interpretation of the basic terms such as “single price list” or “payment terms”, or even “selling at a loss”.
Regardless of the quality of the responses, it was clear that a lot remained unspoken. Would a supplier risk offending a client and potentially lose a listing, when orders, let alone listings were hard to win. Or how many companies would admit to having extracted preferential terms (answer: zero). The subject may be complex, but no-one is going to miss out on getting one over the competition.