Vp plc has revealed it has saved £4.5m of exceptional costs to cover possible cartel fines after an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
The CMA is investigating MGF Trench Construction Systems Ltd (MGF), Vp plc and Mabey Hire Ltd for breaking competition law.
Vp plc revealed the £4.5m provision in its preliminary results for the year to 31 March 2019.
In a statement, Vp said: “The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced on 9 April 2019 that it is investigating three major suppliers of groundworks products to the construction industry.
“The CMA has provisionally found that the 3 businesses, including a part of the Group’s excavation support system business (Groundforce), were involved in suspected anti-competitive behaviour.
“The CMA’s findings are, at this stage in its investigation provisional and do not necessarily lead to a decision that the companies have breached competition law.”
It added: “We continue to work on our response to the CMA’s findings.
“At this point in the process we cannot make an accurate estimate of the likely cost that may subsequently arise in the event that the CMA were to decide in the future that a breach of competition law has taken place.
“However, accounting standard IAS 37 requires us to provide an amount in these accounts and accordingly we have included a figure of £4.5m as an exceptional cost. This figure is in the arithmetic midpoint of a range of possible outcome (£0 to £9.0m) that we have calculated based upon previous cases and CMA published guidance and without any admission of culpability.”
