Three Counties Estate Agents Association

The Three Counties Estate Agents Association is a trade association for estate agents in its local area, not an agency that itself lists houses. Associations write membership rules. The rule at the center of this case said members should not advertise their fees or their discounts. A seller reading the local paper therefore could not see which agent would charge less.

The association and a local newspaper were both involved in keeping fee advertising out. Member agents, including firms the library names on this case, lived under the rule. An association does not need a large turnover to restrict competition. It only needs its members to follow a ban on telling the public the price.

The CMA fined the matter. This profile invents no penalty figure for the association or for anyone else. The competitive act is the rule itself: a collective decision that price would not be advertised.

The association's rule against fee and discount advertising is the restraint.

A local newspaper extended the rule's reach, because the paper was where agents advertised to sellers.

Trade-association rules are horizontal when the members are rival agents.

Home sellers comparing agents in the paper saw branding and photographs, and did not see the commission each agent would charge.

A discounting agent, member or not, lost the cheapest way to tell the town that its fee was lower.