The Office of Fair Trading is looking at complaints from Citroen UK’s dealers that their contracts impose unreasonable demands concerning the scale of new car showrooms.

Their contracts under the previous block exemption required showrooms to house six to eight vehicles; the new contracts require space for as many as 10.

Retail Motor Industry Federation franchised dealer director Alan Pulham says he is in dialogue with the OFT. He describes thenew showroom requirement as "completely disproportionate to the size of Citroen’s market share".

Citroen’s sister-brand Peugeot was recently told by the OFT that its ‘blue box’ showroom design could not be imposed on its dealers, following intervention, while Land Rover was the subject of the OFT’s intervention in the case of a rejected warranty claim involving the fitment of a non-original equipment part.