Ms Isolde Goggin:

On the State aid issue, what my colleague Dr. Wang said is the fact - we do not investigate State aid issues. I am talking about the dual funding issue when a body has some funding from commercial activities and some from the State or from another area. It is outside our remit. We investigate its behaviour on the market and whether it has the object or effect of preventing, restricting or distorting competition. On the point about the brochures, the agreements that we reached were aimed at levelling the playing field. We were not trying to set the price for advertising, because that would not be our remit, but to level the playing field between that company and others.

The Chairman mentioned issues around transparency and paying the foundation fee upfront.

I may not have understood the Chairman correctly but I do not think we would have the power to instruct that a certain fee be paid up front. In any case, I am not sure it would be to the benefit of consumers because it might bring forward the fees they have to pay.

I wish to make a couple of comments in respect of the last exchange. We do not act on behalf of somebody; we implement the law. We are an independent agency to protect consumers and promote competition. If somebody comes to us with an allegation it has to be substantiated or we will not take any further action. We do not just take sides. I would not like to give the impression that we are acting on behalf of somebody or against somebody or whatever. There was a comment to the effect that we had acted on behalf of somebody. That is not what we do. We investigate the evidence and where we believe there is a case to be taken, we take action either through the courts or by engaging directly with the parties.