INDEPENDENT Newspapers must desist from several anti-competitive practices before its agreements with newsagents can be certified as fair, the Competition Authority said last night, Among the policies the watchdog body wants removed is the condition that shops sell Independent's titles only at their cover price.

Normally, when a company is told by the Authority that it was behaving in an anti-competitive way by the Competition Authority, changes are agreed after negotiation. But with no agreement between the newspaper group and the Authority, Independent could now be brought before a court where the Competition Authority would argue that the company's practices break the law.

A spokesman for Independent Newspapers said last night the company was "considering the Competition Authority's statement".

In a 30-page decision, the authority also said it would not accept a provision that shopkeepers could not sell newspapers on to other shops, and could only sell papers from a specified premises.

The Independent was told it could no longer refuse to sell papers to a new shopkeeper because the previous newsagent's account had not been paid in full.

In negotiations with the Competition Authority, Independent Newspapers offered to drop the restriction on retailers reselling to other retailers, along with the provision for the previous owner's debts to be paid in full before a request for the transfer of agency would be approved.

"Independent argued, however, that the pricing restrictions should either be found to be not anti-competitive, or licensed," the competition watchdog said in a statement, "The authority, however, rejected such arguments, deciding that the pricing restrictions were anti-competitive and that they did not improve efficiency and benefit customers.

The decision states that RGDATA, the grocers' lobby group, had argued that retailers should be free to set their own prices, as was normal with other goods.

"Various associations representing retailers had objected to other aspects of Independent's terms, including its requirement for deposits and for bills to be paid by direct debit," the statement continued. "Independent indicated that it would be willing to accept a bank guarantee in place of a deposit. The authority found these practices to be a legitimate means for Independent to protect itself against bad debts.

The Competition Authority said that earlier in the year it had certified the terms and conditions of The Irish Times after the newspaper had agreed to drop the requirement that it be sold only at the cover price.

Last week, the body announced that the National Lottery had agreed to abandon a requirement that new retailers would not be given permission to sell lottery tickets if money owed by the previous retailer had not been paid in full.