The High Court will give judgment next month on proceedings in which the Competition Authority is challenging an agreement reached between most beef processors here to rationalise the industry.

The authority claims the agreement is anti-competitive and will lead to higher beef prices. If implemented, the agreement will will prevent, restrict and distort competition and will ultimately harm consumers as its intended effect will be to raise prices for beef in Ireland.

The action opened last November and ran for several weeks to January last before Mr Justice Liam McKechnie. The judge reserved judgment and secured the services of an independent assessor to assist in some of the issues raised.

When the case was mentioned yesterday, the judge said he had sought assistance from the assessor on one or two other matters and the assessor had asked for two weeks to respond to those queries. The judge said he had impressed on both the assessor and himself the need to give judgment quickly in the case and apologised to both sides for the inconvenience.

The judge said he would be in the High Court in Dundalk for the next two weeks and would give judgment on July 7th.

The proceedings have been brought by the authority against the Beef Industry Development Society Ltd (BIDS) and Barry Brothers (Carrigmore) Ltd.

The action arose after BIDS was set up in May 2002 to "rationalise" the beef industry. The principal beef processing companies, accounting for some 93 per cent of beef processors, are members of BIDS. They claim that the beef processing sector is facing such a problem of overcapacity that some degree of co-operation should be permitted.

The authority claims the members of BIDS have reached an agreement to eliminate 25 per cent of beef slaughtering capacity here or plants which process some 420,000 animals a year.

• The Competition Authority has published the settlement terms it has agreed with Equipment Company of Ireland Limited (trading as ECI-JCB) and Kellys of Borris Limited.

Following a complaint the Competition Authority started an investigation into the distribution of JCBs and industrial equipment in Ireland. ECI-JCB is the exclusive distributor of such machinery in Ireland.

Kellys of Borris is a retailer and distributor of agricultural machinery and industrial equipment in Ireland. ECI JCB and Kellys of Borris established an independent joint venture company Ronason Limited for the retail sales of JCB products in the south-east of Ireland.