The findings could give car dealers, who fear ceding more control of their businesses to manufacturers and being exposed to an open market, hope the EC will not totally scrap the BER in 2010.

Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said: “Buying and running a car are big expenses so we need to make sure the right rules are in place to help competition to work properly.” But the report said increased competition in the new car market was due less to the impact of the BER than the closer integration of markets, technological innovation and manufacturing over capacity. The EC said the BER had given repairers better access to manufacturers' technical information and had led to an increase in the number of authorised repairers that could meet brands' quality criteria. However, it added these provisions would in future be superseded by new EU legislation covering vehicle emissions. The report said provisions such as allowing dealers to open showrooms without workshops had proven redundant and “over prescriptive rules” to encourage multi-brand vehicle sales had been counter-productive. They had led to carmakers enforcing more onerous showroom standards, “making distribution more expensive to the detriment of consumers”. The EC concluded car owners might benefit from improved competition “if less complex rules were to apply to the sector”. It has given “interested parties” until 31 July to respond to the report. Toby Procter, director of market analyst TrendTracker, expects a “watered down” BER to emerge in 2010. He said some elements of the current system had been superfluous – such as the attempt to encourage multi-brand showrooms. “The number of models per franchise has exploded, there's no space to do it,” he said. Procter also argued the move to enable garages to become authorised repairers had had little effect. “There's no evidence it's changed the competition landscape,” he said. But he said freeing up access to manufacturers' technical data had impacted the sector – allowing companies such as Kwik-Fit, Network Auto and Unipart to establish a foothold in the fleet servicing market. An SMMT spokesman said: “The Commission doesn't appear to believe there is a need for a sector specific regulation. We need to take a close look to see if this is the case.” The University of Buckingham's automotive professor Peter Cooke agreed. He said the EC was likely to drop the BER and “let market forces drive the sector”.