The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said that its initial investigation into the Independent Vetcare Ltd’.s (IVC) takeover of eight independent veterinary businesses found competition concerns.
The CMA opened initial investigations into IVC’s takeover of the businesses in December last year.
The competition regulator said its investigations found competition concerns in the supply of veterinary services for small animals in 23 local areas across Essex; Kent; Suffolk; Norfolk; Anglesey; and south Wales.
Concerns were also found in relation to the supply of out-of-hours emergency care for small animals in local areas in Norfolk and Suffolk and in the supply of equine veterinary services in local areas in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire.
The IVC, which is the UK ‘s largest veterinary services provider, has five working days from today (Friday, February 17) to offer legally binding proposals to the CMA to address its identified competition concerns.
The CMA will then have further five working days to consider whether it will accept the proposals instead of referring the cases to next-phase investigations.
Higher prices
The CMA’s investigation found that the combined businesses would account for a significant proportion of the veterinary services in each local area of concern.
The result, the CMA said, could be higher prices for owners and worse quality of service for pets, including more limited treatment options or reduced opening hours.
Senior director of mergers at the CMA, Colin Raftery, said the CMA continues to receive complaints about higher prices or lower quality services as a result of “too many vets’ practices in the same area being under the control of a single company”.
“As a small number of large players continue to buy up independent practices and chains across the UK, we’re continuing to closely monitor their activities so that we can take action to ensure that customers in areas where vets are acquired aren’t left facing a lack of competition.
“As living costs continue to rise and budgets are stretched even further, it’s particularly important that households across the UK shouldn’t be paying over the odds to get the right quality of treatment for their pets,” Raftery said.
