The Office of Fair Trading has cleared the completed acquisition by HPI of Carweb.

THe OFT has decided, on the information currently available, not to refer the merger to the Competition Commission under the provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002.

Daniel Burgess, HPI managing director, said: "HPI is pleased to announce that the OFT has unconditionally  approved HPI’s recent acquisition of Carweb. 

"During its review, both HPI and Carweb fully cooperated with the OFT. 

"Both companies are delighted with the outcome and now look forward to working together to support their customers and the UK automotive market."

> Our previous article.

Separately, HPI has joined forces with AUTOi to combine a range of its data solutions with the industry’s first ever digital vehicle appraisal system.

The partnership will allow dealerships to appraise, store, provenance check, value and send highly detailed vehicle appraisals anywhere, anytime via smartphones, tablets and PC.

Ian Wilde, centre manager at Lexus Chester, is one of a number of dealers who has already benefited from the new offering, claiming that the web based nature of the system means his team can access its dealership appraisals from anywhere in the world.

Wilde said:  “The ability to input a number of variables to create an appraisal that will build a realistic resale value of a vehicle, share that information across our web marketing platforms and to be able to draw upon that information quickly and easily, all from the convenience of a smartphone, tablet  and PC has ultimately streamlined an essential process that has until now, been inefficient.”