{"id":58063,"date":"2015-06-17T14:01:27","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T14:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=24070f417edcd5c8275f73fc92cae7ad"},"modified":"2015-06-17T14:01:27","modified_gmt":"2015-06-17T14:01:27","slug":"news-story-cma-accepts-stagecoach-undertakings-over-intercity-east-coast-franchise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=58063","title":{"rendered":"News story: CMA accepts Stagecoach undertakings over InterCity East Coast franchise"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>On 20 February 2015, the Competition and Markets Authority (<abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/cma-cases\/intercity-railways-limited-intercity-east-coast-franchise#cma-to-consider-undertakings-offered\">announced it would consider in detail undertakings<\/a> proposed by <abbr title=\"Stagecoach Group plc\">Stagecoach<\/abbr> Group plc (<abbr title=\"Stagecoach Group plc\">Stagecoach<\/abbr>) instead of referring the award of the InterCity East Coast (<abbr title=\"InterCity East Coast\">ICEC<\/abbr>) franchise to Inter City Railways Limited, a subsidiary of <abbr title=\"Stagecoach Group plc\">Stagecoach<\/abbr> and Virgin Group Holdings Limited, for an in-depth phase 2 merger investigation.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/cma-cases\/intercity-railways-limited-intercity-east-coast-franchise\">undertakings offered<\/a> by <abbr title=\"Stagecoach Group plc\">Stagecoach<\/abbr> on rail journeys that the <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> found give rise to competition concerns (Peterborough\u2013Grantham and Peterborough\u2013Lincoln), commit it to a price cap on certain fares set by <abbr title=\"Stagecoach Group plc\">Stagecoach<\/abbr>\u2019s East Midlands Trains and on <abbr title=\"InterCity East Coast\">ICEC<\/abbr> \u2013 and provide for the ongoing monitoring of such rail fares by the <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n<p>In relation to Citylink coach services (where the <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> found competition concerns over the Edinburgh\u2013Dundee and Edinburgh\u2013Aberdeen routes in view of <abbr title=\"Stagecoach Group plc\">Stagecoach<\/abbr>\u2019s stake in Citylink), the undertakings require that decisions which may impact the competitiveness of these coach services against <abbr title=\"InterCity East Coast\">ICEC<\/abbr> on these journeys will be taken by <abbr title=\"Stagecoach Group plc\">Stagecoach<\/abbr>\u2019s joint venture partner, ComfortDelGro, instead of <abbr title=\"Stagecoach Group plc\">Stagecoach<\/abbr>. These decisions relate to fares, timetables, frequency and service quality.<\/p>\n<p>Fare decisions relating to seats sold through <abbr title=\"Stagecoach Group plc\">Stagecoach<\/abbr>\u2019s megabus.com website will also be subject to scrutiny by ComfortDelGro, which may require Citylink management to adopt a different pricing policy for fares sold through megabus.com.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of the <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s acceptance of these undertakings, the award of the franchise will not now be referred for an in-depth phase 2 investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Before accepting the undertakings, the <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> carefully assessed and consulted publicly on the proposed undertakings. It received one submission from a third party which led to modification of the undertakings by <abbr title=\"Stagecoach Group plc\">Stagecoach<\/abbr> in order to provide a more effective and clear clear-cut remedy. <\/p>\n<p>The undertakings and all other information relating to this investigation can be found on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/cma-cases\/intercity-railways-limited-intercity-east-coast-franchise\">case page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CMA has accepted undertakings offered by Stagecoach to remedy competition concerns over the award of the InterCity East Coast rail franchise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}