The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has accused Britain’s three biggest department store chains of fixing the price of sports bras between 2008 and 2011.

Supplier DB Apparel UK Limited (DBA) is alleged to have entered into agreements with John Lewis, Debenhams and House of Fraser to fix the price of sports bras, resulting in the prices for DBA’s popular Shock Absorber product.

"The OFT takes allegations of price-fixing seriously. Resale price maintenance limits competition between retailers and can lead to consumers paying higher prices," said Ann Pope, OFT Senior Director of Services.
However, she added that no assumption should be made at this stage that there had been an infringement of competition law.
"We will carefully consider the parties' representations to the (OFT's) Statement of Objections before deciding whether competition law has in fact been infringed."