<span class="" id="parent-fieldname-description"> The Australian Competition Tribunal has affirmed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissionâs decision to revoke CBH Groupâs exclusive dealing notification in Western Australia. </span> <p>CBH’s exclusive dealing notification allowed the grain group to require WA grain growers and marketers who use CBH’s ‘up-country’ storage facilities to also use its transport services to deliver grain to port.</p><p>But in June 2011, the ACCC revoked the notification, which had been held by CBH since 2008.</p><p>CBH took the matter to the Competition Tribunal, which on Friday affirmed the ACCC’s decision.</p><p>“The Tribunal’s decision means that for the first time since deregulation of wheat export marketing in 2008, growers and marketers in Western Australia will be free to make their own arrangements for transporting grain to port,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims said.</p><p>“Importantly, the decision does not affect CBH’s ability to continue to offer Western Australian growers a bundled storage and transport option, currently known as Grain Express,” he continued.</p><p>“The effect of the Tribunal’s decision is simply that growers and marketers storing grain with CBH will no longer be forced to use CBH’s Grain Express system to move their grain.”</p><p>CBH Group chief executive officer Andy Crane called the result “disappointing,” but confirmed that Grain Express would remain available for those wishing to use the CBH coordinated system.</p><p>Crane was confident that the decision would not turn too many CBH customers away from the Grain Express service.</p><p>“Grain Express epitomises the very nature of a cooperative,” he said. “We are confident that the vast majority of grain will continue to move via the Grain Express system because of the value and benefit it offers growers and marketers.”</p>
