Watchdog to Look at dunnhumby?

The UK's supermarkets watchdog is reportedly looking into claims of inappropriate 'favouritism' shown by Tesco towards customers of its dunnhumby data business.

According to London paper The Evening Standard (www.standard.co.uk ), the Groceries Code Adjudicator Christine Tacon has been aware of 'potential favouritism towards dunnhumby customers by Tesco' and will raise it with the retail giant, although the matter may not fall within her precise remit.

dunnhumby says there are Chinese walls between the firms and that 'Nobody has any compulsion to choose to buy from them'. The Standard also quotes unnamed suppliers saying dunnhumby's data is rather pricey, although DRNO wonders whether this really adds anything to the case.

If followed up, the enquiry will be one of the first tasks of dunnhumby's new Chief Executive Officer, current Google exec Guillaume Bacuvier, whose appointment was announced last week.

It's now eighteen months since Tesco finally scrapped its plans to sell dunnhumby, which had been in the air for a year. During the reported negotiations, with a Who's Who of global data firms, the price tag was said to have dropped from an initial £2bn to around £700m. However the company remains one of the great customer data success stories and seems likely to top the MRS League Tables of British MR firms when figures for 2016 are released later this year.

Web site: www.dunnhumby.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.