Asda will be publicly criticised by competition watchdogs on Wednesday when they publish the latest phase of their response to a 'super-complaint' about predatory pricing tactics by major grocers.
Sky News has learnt that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will disclose that it has forced Asda to provide a written commitment to pricing practices designed to clamp down on promotions such as multi-buys.
The public statement will be the latest piece of bad news to hit Asda, which has struggled with plunging sales amid intensifying competition from emerging rivals at the discount end of the grocery market which has historically been its stronghold.
It will also come despite Asda's traditional reputation as the cheapest of the major grocers, having been rated the lowest-priced by the influential Grocer magazine for 18 years in a row across a basket of 33 products.
Owned by Walmart, the world's largest retailer, speculation has been rife about a prospective change of leadership at Asda for months, although Andy Clarke, its chief executive and a member of David Cameron's Business Advisory Group, is understood to have its support.
A supermarket industry source said that Asda was likely to be the only major chain singled out by the CMA in its latest update on industry promotional tactics since it responded to the Which? super-complaint last July.
The regulator is expected to say that all major grocers have been asked to modify their pricing but that Asda is the only one to have been asked for a written commitment to industry guidelines.
It is thought that the CMA may also indicate that Asda refused to co-operate with some aspects of its super-complaint inquiry, which was lodged a year ago.
In its initial report nine months ago, the CMA said it had discovered "examples of pricing and promotional practices that have the potential to confuse or mislead consumers and which could be in breach of consumer law".
Particularly contentious areas for the watchdog during its discussions with Asda were said to have been the issue of 'one-for-one pricing, which obliges retailers to keep items on promotion for the same duration as their standard price; and 'link-save' promotions, which include multi-buy offers.
Asda is said to have argued that the first of these areas serves consumers poorly because it enables retailers to change prices much more frequently.
Nisha Arora, a CMA enforcement director, said last July: "We have found that, whilst supermarkets want to comply with the law and shoppers enjoy a wide range of choices, with an estimated 40% of grocery spending being on items on promotion, there are still areas of poor practice that could confuse or mislead shoppers."
The regulator's overall verdict last year was criticised by some consumer groups as being too weak given the extent to which shoppers were potentially being misled, but it was simultaneously hailed by the big food retailers as vindicating many of their promotional activities.
Since then, a number of the big grocers, including J Sainsbury and Wm Morrison, have altered or scrapped 'brand-match' elements of their marketing campaigns as the industry price war continues to hurt margins.
A CMA spokesman confirmed that an announcement would be made in relation to its "follow-up work to the Which? super-complaint about misleading and opaque pricing practices in the grocery market", but declined to comment on the content of Wednesday's statement.
Asda and Which? declined to comment.
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