Some of the UK’s top modeling agencies are at the center of an investigation by the Competitions and Markets Authority, which is trying to determine if Premier Model Management, Models 1 and Storm Model Managment have been fixing the prices they charge for brands to hire their models.
The agencies are suspected of working together in this capacity and may have violated laws against preventing competition. The agencies are still being investigated and were raided in order to determine whether or not they were acting illegally. The stakes are high for the agencies who, if found guilty, may have to let go of “up to 10 percent of their worldwide turnover.” The CMA has been investigating the issue since March and estimates that by October, it will decide whether or not to continue with the investigation or close it completely. Since the investigation is ongoing, the CMA says we shouldn’t assume the agencies are guilty of anything until all the information has been processed.
Alek Wek, Jourdan Dunn, Anne V, Sara Sampaio, Bar Refaeli, Malaika Firth and Sasha Luss are just a handful of names represented by each agency.
[via Independent]
