The OFT has replied. Attached is a full transcript of communications to date (16KB worth). Essentially, their argument now boils down to: "'The Court has held (in particular in Höfner & Elser) that in the context of competition law the concept of an undertaking encompasses every entity engaged in an economic activity, regardless of the legal status of the entity and the way in which it is financed. Sickness funds, and the organisations involved in the management of the public social security system, fulfil an exclusively social function. That activity is based on the principle of solidarity and is entirely non-profit making.' As such, the principle of solidarity (i.e. that fact that the services available to a person under the NHS bear no relationship to the amount (if any) contributed by that person to the NHS by way of taxes or National Insurance contributions) and the fact that the body in question fulfils a purely social function is central to the question as to whether or not that body is an undertaking. As such, whether this might involve the purchase of, say, a renal dialysis machine or the necessary computer software services required for the general purpose of helping to run the NHS is irrelevant if the purpose in both cases is to facilitate the overall objective of the NHS - the provision of free healthcare services to society as a whole." As an interesting aside, this could mean that free software projects are also not subject to the Competition Act. After all, a free software project is based on the principal of solidarity: "the services available to a person [from a free software project] bear no relationship to the amount (if any) contributed by that person to the [free software project] by way of [any means]", *provided* that the project group does not offer paid-for consultancy services. Of course, there should be nothing to prevent individual members of a free software project offering private, for-profit consultancy since there are certainly medical professionals who work in both the NHS and private practice. A free software project is therefore an "activity ... based on the principle of solidarity and is entirely non-profit making". So, if any of us ever wanted to set up some anti-competitive deals, all we have to do is: 1. Pay 20ukp to set up a limited company. This creates a new legal person, and avoids any possible problems about what might or might not constitute an 'entity'. 2. In the name of the company, set up a free software project. Spend a day or two hacking together something mildly useful and make it available for download. License it under the GPL or similar. 3. Provide the free software project with a donations facility. You will probably need to open a business bank account in order to do this. Barclays will give you 18 months without bank charges, and I'm sure other banks will do similar offers. Make it clear on the project web page that this facility is purely for donations and that all money received will go towards providing improved facilities for the project: none will ever retained as profit or paid out as dividends to the shareholders. 4. Route any potentially anti-competitive deals through the new company. Explain to the OFT that the company is not an undertaking, preferably by quoting their own words back to them. There you go: how to bypass the Competition Act for only 20ukp... Michael