The culmination of the Commission’s enquiry was its report which, in most cases,
was submitted to the Secretary of State for consideration and was normally laid before
Parliament, where it often formed the basis of a debate or parliamentary questions. In
the case of monopoly references judged to be against the public interest, the Secretary of
State – with the advice of the DGFT – decided on an appropriate course of action which
could involve an order to prevent or remedy the particular adverse effects identified by
the Commission. In the case of merger referencesa similar procedure occurred in the
event of an adverse judgement by the Commission. The Secretary of State, however, was
not bound to accept the Commission’s recommendations