Many of the UK's biggest businesses are unprepared for the new competition regime that came into force this month, law firm research has revealed.

In a survey of more than 50 FTSE 350 firms by national firm Addleshaw Goddard, almost half said they had not trained senior staff on how to avoid problems with the authorities, now that competition enforcement powers have been transferred from the European Commission to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and UK courts.

More than a third had no procedure for dealing with unannounced visits by the OFT, and more than a fifth said they had no plans to implement policies or train staff.

Some 80% of respondents said they would use external lawyers to support them in the event of a raid - but most were one to two hours' travelling distance from their legal advisers.

Addleshaw Goddard competition partner Jonathan Davey said OFT officers will normally only wait one hour for lawyers to arrive.

He added: 'This comes in a year when we have seen some very large fines issued...

and despite the fact that two-thirds of respondents had had some contact with the OFT on competition law issues, with one- fifth having had a visit from the OFT.'

Rachel Rothwell