13 January 2022

BPIF Lobbying success!

We’ve had a successful result for our lobbying on the Competition & Market Authority’s (CMA) Funerals Order!

We were contacted by a member company, Rose Calendars of Colchester, Essex, which was experiencing a loss of business – a local funeral home had stopped placing orders for promotional merchandise, including cards, diaries, calendars and notebooks. The funeral director cited a recent regulation, the Funerals Market Order 2021 from the CMA, as the reason that the merchandise could no longer be distributed. 

The Order was preventing funeral directors from ordering promotional merchandise to gift to hospices and care homes, seemingly categorising such gifts as ‘inducements to do business’. Working with the British Promotional Merchandise Association and the National Association of Funeral Directors, we wrote to the CMA to raise the issue, pointing out that the promotional merchandise is of low value and unlikely to be considered an inducement. 

We’ve since heard that the CMA have confirmed that preventing Funeral Directors from buying promotional material was not an intended consequence of the Order, and that funeral directors can return to ordering and using promotional merchandise immediately. 

Michael Rose, Managing Director of Rose Calendars said:

“It was very worrying to find that a regulation completely unrelated to our industry was going to have a knock-on effect. The loss of sales we were facing would have had an impact on the business.  

“The BPIF were extremely helpful in guiding us where to begin to get this overturned. Raising it with our BPIF Regional Director meant he could bring on board the BPIF’s legal and public affairs teams, and the CEO, to work out a lobbying approach. It really felt like they were fighting our corner. The BPMA were also instrumental in assisting with the overturn. 

“Even though the ruling came extremely late, we’re pleased to be able to reassure our customers that they can continue to do business with us.”