The Office of Fair Trading has concluded that it has no grounds to take action against IDEXX Laboratories Limited following an investigation into alleged abuses of a dominant position in the veterinary diagnostic testing sector.

The OFT opened its investigation in November 2010 after it received a complaint alleging that IDEXX was abusing a dominant position in the market for the supply of in-clinic pet testing equipment in order to foreclose competition.

The conduct assessed by the OFT included alleged practices of:

• providing discounts on diagnostic testing equipment to vets who agree to use IDEXX's external laboratory services,
• providing free or heavily discounted IDEXX analysers to vets who agree to spend a minimum amount each month on materials to be used with those analysers, and
• offering discounted bundles of external laboratory tests which include a test that is only available from IDEXX.

The full reasoning for the OFT's conclusion, including details of the methodologies used by the OFT to assess potential theories of harm relating to alleged mixed bundling (also known as multi-product rebates) and alleged predatory pricing in systems markets, is available from the OFT's website, here.

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