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John D

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I am a partner in a leading UK law firm. I have been watching this debate from afar for some months without comment. I have no vested interest in this matter, save from my wife working in the property industry, in the interest of full disclosure. My views are as follows. Agents should be under no illusion that Agents Mutual exclusivity may be illegal and may result in quite costly fines for its members. Agents Mutual itself seems to have been quite silent on this matter. It is simply not enough to say that they took advise 2 or 3 years ago before they were formed and when their market share was zero. What update have they had to this advice since launch and now claiming decent market share wins? If I were advising a client on this matter I would be asking for following. If my client was already a member, I would want to see now either i) clear current advise from Agents Mutual lawyers that there is a very limited risk or ii) the rule to be dropped as the potential damages (10% of revenues plus reputation, etc) would appear to far outweigh any benefits of this rule. If my client was not a member but thinking about joining, I would want them to get an indemnity from the founders in the agreement for any potential fines or damages. The CMA takes this stuff seriously. Agents Mutual can't have it both ways - claiming to be small enough to not be relevant to CMA whilst claiming to be large enough to be impacting market. Members of Agents Mutual would be well advised to take advise on this matter and seek to remove this rule if they want to limit their risks.

From: John D 04 June 2015 12:01 PM

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