Waitrose has admitted to signing deals with landlords that would halt other supermarkets from opening nearby. The retailer, which has been penning the deals for nearly a decade, revealed the practice following a probe by the competition watchdog.
The supermarket, which is owned by the John Lewis Partnership, has said it has re-written property deals for numerous sites to allay competition concerns. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it found the land agreements breached competition laws between 2010 and 2019.
It came after an investigation by the regulator which found in 2020 that Tesco “unlawfully” leaned on landlords to not rent nearby sites to rivals. Tesco admitted that internal processes were not correctly followed.
