The Criminalization of European Cartel Enforcement

The Criminalization of European Cartel Enforcement PDF Author: Peter Whelan
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191649031
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 487

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Book Description
Cartel activity is prohibited under EU law by virtue of Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Firms that violate this provision face severe punishment from those entities responsible for enforcing EU competition law: the European Commission, the national competition authorities, and the national courts. Stiff fines are regularly imposed on firms by these entities; such firm-focused punishment is an established feature of the antitrust enforcement landscape within the EU. In recent years, however, focus has also been placed on the individuals within the firms responsible for the cartel activity. It is increasingly recognized that punishment for cartel activity should be individual-focused as well as firm-focused. Accordingly, a growing tendency to criminalize cartel activity can be observed in the EU Member States. The existence of such criminal sanctions within the EU presents a number of crucial challenges that need to be met if the underlying enforcement objectives are to be achieved in practice without violating prevailing legal norms. For a start, given the severe consequences of a custodial sentence, the employment of criminal antitrust punishment must be justifiable in principle: one must have a robust normative framework rationalizing the existence of criminal cartel sanctions. Second, for it to be legitimate, antitrust criminalization should only occur in a manner that respects the mandatory legalities applicable to the European jurisdiction in question. These include the due process rights of the accused and the principle of legal certainty. Finally, the correct practical measures (such as a criminal leniency policy and a correctly defined criminal cartel offence) need to be in place in order to ensure that the employment of criminal antitrust punishment actually achieves its aims while maintaining its legitimacy. These three particular challenges can be conceptualized respectively as the theoretical, legal, and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalization. This book analyses these three crucial challenges so that the complexity of the process of European antitrust criminalization can be understood more accurately. In doing so, this book acknowledges that the three challenges should not be considered in isolation. In fact there is a dynamic relationship between the theoretical, legal, and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalization and an effective antitrust criminalization policy is one which recognizes and respects this complex interaction.

The Criminalization of European Cartel Enforcement

The Criminalization of European Cartel Enforcement PDF Author: Peter Whelan
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191649031
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 487

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cartel activity is prohibited under EU law by virtue of Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Firms that violate this provision face severe punishment from those entities responsible for enforcing EU competition law: the European Commission, the national competition authorities, and the national courts. Stiff fines are regularly imposed on firms by these entities; such firm-focused punishment is an established feature of the antitrust enforcement landscape within the EU. In recent years, however, focus has also been placed on the individuals within the firms responsible for the cartel activity. It is increasingly recognized that punishment for cartel activity should be individual-focused as well as firm-focused. Accordingly, a growing tendency to criminalize cartel activity can be observed in the EU Member States. The existence of such criminal sanctions within the EU presents a number of crucial challenges that need to be met if the underlying enforcement objectives are to be achieved in practice without violating prevailing legal norms. For a start, given the severe consequences of a custodial sentence, the employment of criminal antitrust punishment must be justifiable in principle: one must have a robust normative framework rationalizing the existence of criminal cartel sanctions. Second, for it to be legitimate, antitrust criminalization should only occur in a manner that respects the mandatory legalities applicable to the European jurisdiction in question. These include the due process rights of the accused and the principle of legal certainty. Finally, the correct practical measures (such as a criminal leniency policy and a correctly defined criminal cartel offence) need to be in place in order to ensure that the employment of criminal antitrust punishment actually achieves its aims while maintaining its legitimacy. These three particular challenges can be conceptualized respectively as the theoretical, legal, and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalization. This book analyses these three crucial challenges so that the complexity of the process of European antitrust criminalization can be understood more accurately. In doing so, this book acknowledges that the three challenges should not be considered in isolation. In fact there is a dynamic relationship between the theoretical, legal, and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalization and an effective antitrust criminalization policy is one which recognizes and respects this complex interaction.

Criminalization of Competition Law Enforcement

Criminalization of Competition Law Enforcement PDF Author: K. J. Cseres
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 184720290X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
This timely book brings together contributions from prominent scholars and practitioners to the ongoing debate on the criminalization of competition law enforcement. Recognizing that existing remedies and sanctions may be insufficient to deter breaches of competition law, several EU Member States have followed the US example and introduced pecuniary penalties for executives, professional disqualification orders, and even jail sentences. Addressing issues such as unsolved legal puzzles, standard of proof, leniency programs and internal cartel stability, this book is a marker for future policy debate. With perspectives from an international cast of contributors, Criminalization of Competition Law Enforcement will be of great interest to academics and policy makers as well as students and practitioners in law.

Regulating Cartels in Europe

Regulating Cartels in Europe PDF Author: Christopher Harding
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199551480
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
One of the most contentious and high-profile aspects of EU competition law and policy has been the regulation of those serious competition or antitrust violations now often referred to as 'hard core cartels'. Such cartel activity typically involves large and powerful corporate producers and traders operating across Europe and beyond, and comprise practices such as price fixing, bid rigging, market sharing, and limiting production in order to ensure 'market stability' and maintain and increase profits. There is little disagreement now, in terms of competition theory and policy at both international and national levels, regarding the damaging effect of such trading practices on public and consumer interests, and such cartels have been subject to increasing condemnation in the legal process of regulating and protecting competition. Regulating Cartels in Europe provides critical evaluation of the way in which European-level regulation has evolved to deal with the activities of such anti-competitive business cartels. They trace the historical development of cartel regulation in Europe, comparing the more pragmatic and empirical approached favored in Europe with the more dogmatic and uncompromising American policy on cartels. In particular, the work considers critically the move towards the use of fully fledged criminal proceedings in this area of legal control, examining evolving aspects of enforcement policy such as the use of leniency programs and the deployment of a range of criminal law and other sanctions. This new edition of the work covers emerging themes and arguments in the discipline, including the judicial review of decisions against cartels, the criminological and legal basis of the criminalization of cartel conduct, and the range and effectiveness of sanctions used in response to cartel activity.

Efficiency and Justice in European Antitrust Enforcement

Efficiency and Justice in European Antitrust Enforcement PDF Author: Wouter Wils
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1847314139
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
In the last few years, the public enforcement of Articles 81 and 82 EC has been thoroughly transformed: the competition authorities of the EU Member States have become active enforcers within the European Competition Network, the European Commission has imposed more and higher fines than ever before, leniency has become a major instrument of cartel detection, and some Member States have introduced criminal penalties. The overall trend towards more and stronger enforcement of Articles 81 and 82 EC has also rekindled discussion on the old question of how to strike the right balance between efficient enforcement and adequate protection of the rights of the defence. This book brings together six essays which analyse from both a legal and an economic perspective the powers of investigation of the European Commission and the competition authorities of the Member States, and the corresponding procedural rights and guarantees, the use of settlements, the theory and practice of fines and of leniency, and the criminalization of European antitrust enforcement.

The Consistent Application of EU Competition Law

The Consistent Application of EU Competition Law PDF Author: Adriana Almășan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319473824
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
In recent years, there has been a decentralisation of the enforcement of the EU competition law provisions, Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Consequently, the national application of these provisions has become increasingly more common across the European Union. This national application poses various challenges for those concerned about the consistent application of EU competition law. This edited collection provides an in-depth analysis of the most important limitations of, and the challenges concerning, the applicability of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU at national level. Divided into five parts, the book starts out by examining how the consistent enforcement of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU operates as a general EU competition policy. It then discusses several recent landmark cases of the European Court of Justice on Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, before proceeding to analyse certain additional, unique jurisdictional challenges to the uniform application of the EU competition law provisions. Subsequently, it focuses on one of the most important instruments that can help to achieve the uniform application of EU competition law in cases handled by the national courts: preliminary rulings. Finally, it provides selective examples of how Articles 101 and 102 TFEU are effectively applied at national level, thereby providing additional input into how problematic the issue of consistent application of EU competition law is in practice.

Criminalising Cartels

Criminalising Cartels PDF Author: Caron Beaton-Wells
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1847318134
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 776

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Book Description
This book is inspired by the international movement towards the criminalisation of cartel conduct over the last decade. Led by US enforcers, criminalisation has been supported by a growing number of regulators and governments. It derives its support from the simple yet forceful proposition that criminal sanctions, particularly jail time, are the most effective deterrent to such activity. However, criminalisation is much more complex than that basic proposition suggests. There is complexity both in terms of the various forces that are driving and shaping the movement (economic, political and social) and in the effects on the various actors involved in it (government, enforcement agencies, the business community, judiciary, legal profession and general public). Featuring contributions from authors who have been at the forefront of the debate around the world, this substantial 19-chapter volume captures the richness of the criminalisation phenomenon and considers its implications for building an effective criminal cartel regime, particularly outside of the US. It adopts a range of approaches, including general theoretical perspectives (from criminal theory, economics, political science, regulation and criminology) and case-studies of the experience with the design and enforcement of existing or contemplated criminal cartel regimes in various jurisdictions (including in Australia, Canada, EU, Germany, Ireland and the UK). The book also explores the international dimensions of criminalisation - its specific practical consequences (such as increased potential for extradition) as well as its more general implications for trends of harmonisation or convergence in competition law and enforcement.

The Criminalization of European Cartel Enforcement

The Criminalization of European Cartel Enforcement PDF Author: Peter Whelan (Lawyer)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191749445
Category : Antitrust law
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
The challenges facing the criminalisation of cartel activity in the European Union are threefold: theoretical, legal, and practical. This book analyses these crucial challenges so that the complexity of the process of European antitrust criminalisation can be accurately understood.

Hard Core Cartels Recent progress and challenges ahead

Hard Core Cartels Recent progress and challenges ahead PDF Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 926410125X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
This book reviews progress in the fight against hard core cartels. It quantifies the harm caused by cartels and identifies improved methods of investigation. It also examines progress in strengthening sanctions against businesses and individuals.

The Optimal Enforcement of EC Antitrust Law:A Study in Law and Economics

The Optimal Enforcement of EC Antitrust Law:A Study in Law and Economics PDF Author: Wouter Wils
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041117571
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
This text provides clear answers to the major questions concerning the modernization of EC antitrust enforcement such as: should a notification system be maintained, or should the antitrust rules be enforced exclusively through deterrence?; and at what levels should fines be set?

Cartel Criminality

Cartel Criminality PDF Author: Christopher Harding
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131716962X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Anti-competitive business cartels, engaging in practices such as price fixing, market sharing, bid rigging and restrictions on output, are now subject to strong official censure and rigorous legal control in a large number of jurisdictions across the world. The longstanding condemnation under the US Sherman Act of 1890 has been taken up (although in a rather different form) during the last thirty years in the EC/EU and in European national jurisdictions in particular, but also in a range of countries outside North America and Europe. Legal control has not only extended geographically but has intensified, as a number of jurisdictions have moved beyond administrative regulation and penalties to embrace enforcement through civil liability and (most significantly in terms of policy and rhetoric) the methods of criminal law. It is therefore timely to consider critically this development of legal control and assess its achievement to date and its future prospects. But such an exercise requires an understanding of the reasons and need for such regulation, based on a clear appreciation of the nature and extent of the economic and social malaise which is its subject. What, more exactly, are such business cartels, why do they come into existence and persist, why are they regarded as being so bad, and what are the objectives within this increasingly complex and multi-level phenomenon of legal control? By seeking to answer such fundamental questions, this book sets a research agenda for a pathology, aetiology and criminology of business cartels, and probes more accurately their nature, operation, endurance and perceived delinquency.