Fittingly, the Adjudicator has had an air of mystery about it ever since the grocery ombudsman was given its rather Kafka-esque name last August.
Could it give aggrieved suppliers anonymity, or would they be exposed to the vengeance of evil mults? Would its disciplinary powers amount to anything more than a gentle slap on the retailers' wrists?
As its introduction seemed to slide down the coalition’s legislative agenda, the doubts increasingly came to be about when it would come into existence (and perhaps even whether it would come into existence). Some speculated it could be 2014 before the new office was up and running.
Thankfully, the industry now has a degree of clarity, with a timetable for implementation finally laid out (sort of).
The Department of Business, Innovation & Skills – that spiritual home of the opaque epithet – will publish a draft bill before this parliamentary session ends on 6 April. It then “hopes” to get a final bill sorted before MPs swap their second homes in London for their holiday homes in the south of France.
If all goes to plan – and who would ever question the efficiency of our elected representatives? – the Adjudicator could be handing down its Solomon-like proclamations of justice next year.
That’s a mere four years after the Competition Commission said an ombudsman was needed to police the grocery trade.
A few things have changed since then: the government, for a start; its virtuous circle of endless prosperity turning into the worst economic crisis in decades; the unstoppable rise of meerkats selling car insurance.
But the love-hate dependency between suppliers and their retailer counterparts remains as turbulent as ever.
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