The Office for Fair Trading (OFT) has fined nine retailers and dairy groups nearly £50m for price-fixing.
Asda, Safeway and Tesco have all been accused of fixing cheese and milk prices in 2002 and 2003.
The OFT also found Arla, Dairy Crest, McLelland, Sainsbury’s, The Cheese Company, Wiseman and Tesco guilty of infringing the Competition Act and rigging dairy prices.
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The regulator estimated that consumers in the UK spent an extra £270m as a result of the price fixing.
Tesco, which was hit with a £10m fine, denies it colluded with others and attacked the ‘absurdity’ of the UK antitrust regime.
The supermarket giant has expressed ‘surprise and dismay’ over the allegations and has called for the Office of Fair Trading to be dismantled.
The remaining eight firms have admitted liability resulting in a more lenient penalty being handed down by the regulator.
