Competition watchdog writes open letter to councils on street furniture contracts and exclusivity clauses

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has written an open letter to local authorities and local transport bodies about street furniture contracts which contain exclusivity clauses with respect to the display of advertising.

The letter comes after the CMA found that some may have “mistakenly understood” that any agreement they have with one of the largest operators of street furniture-based advertising, JCDecaux, to exclusively install street furniture, such as bus stops, would prevent other firms from installing on-street electric vehicle (EV) chargers that also include an advertising screen within that local area.

The watchdog said it was “concerned that this may be negatively impacting competition in on-street advertising as well as slowing the roll-out of public EV charging infrastructure.”

In the open letter, Juliette Enser, Interim Executive Director of Competition Enforcement said: “We have written to JCDecaux which has confirmed that it ‘will not enforce any exclusivity terms which would prevent the installation of electric vehicle charging with integrated advertising that is at a distance of more than 25 meters from existing JCDecaux street furniture’.

“This confirmation is in accordance with voluntary assurances given by JCDecaux and Clear Channel to the Office of Fair Trading (a predecessor body to the CMA) in 2012.”

Enser called on local authorities to “review their arrangements” to ensure they are not “mistakenly” being interpreted as preventing providers of EV charging infrastructure from investing in local communities and working with local authorities and transport bodies to “help the transition from petrol and diesel vehicles to EVs”.

She added: “Should your authority look to introduce or renew any exclusive arrangements in relation to advertising on street furniture, we are further asking that you consider the scope of those arrangements and that relevant teams understand what those arrangements mean in practice.”

Lottie Winson