One consequence of globalisation and the growth of cross-border trade has been a dramatic increase in the number of countries that have enacted antitrust laws to address competition violations and, in particular, cartels. Today, nearly 100 jurisdictions around the world have enacted laws prohibiting cartels as they aim to raise prices for consumers. Often with strong rhetoric, antitrust enforcers across the world emphasise that the detection, prohibition and punishment of cartels is their number one priority. This, however, remains their greatest challenge. Cartels are often secretly fostered and implemented, and are difficult to detect without the involvement of the participants.
To address the challenge of cartel detection and prosecution, antitrust agencies have adopted leniency regimes, which provide incentives to cartel conspirators to cooperate with antitrust enforcers and provide evidence against their fellow participants. In essence, leniency regimes are an application of the prisoner dilemma to the field of antitrust law: (i) if none of the conspirators collaborate, the agencies may not detect the cartel, or may only be able to impose a lesser sentence for lack of evidence; but (ii) if one conspirator betrays the others, the antitrust enforcers will more likely successfully pursue the others. For leniency regimes to be successful, antitrust agencies must convince conspirators that this is ‘an offer they should not refuse’.
To date, leniency regimes have been considered the most successful cartel detection and prosecution tool by most antitrust enforcers. This book attests to their success. Indeed, since our first edition in 2005, leniency regimes have been at the forefront of antitrust enforcement. In the last two years we have witnessed a proliferation of new leniency programmes in parts of the world previously reluctant to pursue them, such as Latin America, and significant revisions to existing ones. Importantly, in 2006, the European Commission’s new guidelines on immunity from fines and the reduction of fines in cartel cases came into force.
This second edition covers almost all leniency regimes currently in force and includes the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, Korea, South Africa, Switzerland, Israel, Mexico and Brazil, and the European Union and the European Economic Area including Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Norway. The volume also includes chapters by senior officials of the European Commission, the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice, and the Canadian Competition Bureau. Each chapter of this book gives companies and practitioners critical insight into the increasingly complex and important questions they face when deciding to apply for leniency.
European Lawyer Reference Series
