A consortium of retailers have overturned a controversial decision from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) over tobacco price-fixing.

The Co-operative, Asda, Morrisons and Royal Dutch Shell were among those successful in overturning a previous ruling of unlawful pricing.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal approved an appeal against the original decision from the retailers along with Imperial Tobacco which reversed the £112.3m decision against it.

The OFT had alleged that two manufacturers and 10 retailers fixed prices on hand-rolled tobacco, cigarettes, pipe tobacco and cigars between 2001 and 2003.

The case resulted in the OFT’s largest ever fine of £225m. Imperial said it will now apply to recover the “considerable” legal costs.

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