High street retailers hit by claims of sports bra price-fixing Three of Britain's largest department stores and a leading UK sports bra maker colluded in pushing up the price of bras, the competition watchdog has alleged in provisional findings. The Office of Fair Trading said on Friday that John Lewis, Debenhams and House of Fraser, the high street retailers, made nine anti-competitive agreements with DB Apparel, maker of the Shock Absorber bra. The competition watchdog said that if its investigation proved true, it would constitute a "serious infringement of competition law." It alleged that the retailers and supplier agreed between 2008-11 to set a fixed or minimum price for the bra, which was promoted in an advertising campaign featuring tennis star Anna Kournikova, with the promise that "only the ball should bounce." The Shock Absorber bra was one of the leading UK brands with 15 per cent of the market at the time, according to the regulator. Ann Pope, OFT senior director of services, infrastructure and public markets, said: "Resale price maintenance limits competition between retailers and can lead to consumers paying higher prices." The companies have time to answer the allegations before the OFT makes it final ruling next year. "We will carefully consider the parties" representations to the (OFT's) statement of objections before deciding whether competition law has in fact been infringed," said Ms Pope. DB Apparel said in a statement: "We reject any allegations by the OFT that we have entered into any agreement or understanding with retailers as to their retail prices of our products." Debenhams said it disputed the provisional findings and was investigating them. John Lewis said it was co-operating with the investigation. House of Fraser said: "We are co-operating fully with the OFT and the ongoing investigation and will respond accordingly."