Reproduced from Music Week 17 February, 1996

Castle Communications and Edel Records were fined £30,000 each, the BPI announced on Friday, after an investigation found what it calls 'clear evidence' that the companies were attempting to hype the charts. Both deny the charges.

BPI director general John Deacon has vowed that the BPI will forge ahead with its investigations. 'This is not the end of the matter,' he says. 'There will be no let-up. The council gave me a broad brief last year to rigorously investigate all chart transgressions. This is just the first part of that.'

The fines were the first result of a probe which was launched 12 months ago, well before Love This Records Tatjana single Santa Maria was excluded from the chart.

A private investigator was hired by the BPI in January after continuing rumours that labels were attempting to hype the charts. It is understood that the BPI believes its investigations have identified north London poster company Rock Box Promotions as the buying team working the seven records under investigation.

Although legal advisor Sara John says there is no evidence that chart hyping is widespread, she says more information has been uncovered regarding other alleged buying teams.

'Our investigator has a lot more leads and we will follow them up,' she says. 'If there is something else going on we will track it down because the level of information we are getting is substantial.'

The fines were levied in relation to:

The Good Life single by The New Power Generation on Edel, Energy Orchard's Pain Killer album on Castle and Big Country single You Dreamer on Castle.

Both companies are ordered to pay their fines within 14 days. The BPI adds that it is continuing investigations into the activities of Love This Records which is not a BPI member and, therefore, not subject to the sanctions. The BPI cited concerns over four Love This singles: Here We Go Again by BND, and For All We Know and Did You Ever Really Love Me? by Nicki French, as well as Santa Maria by Tatjana.

In its statement on Friday, the BPI says documentary evidence provided by CIN and oral evidence collected by the BPI investigator found clear evidence that all seven records bad been 'bought in' and that the record companies had been involved.

John stresses that none of the seven singles benefited from any alleged buying in. CIN took the standard action of withdrawing specific stores' sales data from the chart panel after initial examination raised doubts. Both Love This's Mike Stock - who also continues to reject the allegations - and Edel's Andrew Cleary confirm that they have used Rock Box as a fly-poster company, but deny that they had ever asked them to buy any of the records. Castle was unavailable for comment.

It is understood that Rock Box also denies buying records in an attempt to manipulate the charts; according to information enclosed within a summons issued against the BPI, the company bought a substantial quantity of each of the seven records as 'market research' in advance of a label launch. Lawyer Paddy Grafton Green of Theodore Goddard, who chaired the committee of enquiry, says the evidence provided by the enquiry was thorough. 'In considering the penalties that have been imposed the committee took into account the fact that companies involved were independents and had very much in mind the importance of demonstrating to its members that the provisions of the code of conduct should be rigorously but fairly enforced,' he says.