Leniency Programs in a Multimarket Setting: Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus

Catherine Roux and von Ungern-Sternberg, Thomas

Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) from Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP

Abstract: We examine the effect of Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus on firms' initial selfreporting decision, in one market, by altering their whistle-blowing incentives in another market. Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus are proactive US strategies which aim at triggering multiple confessions by increasing the incentives of already convicted firms to report in a second market where they collude. Predictably, conditional on the conviction of one cartel, Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus strengthen firms' incentives to report the remaining cartel. However, Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus have an ambiguous impact on firms' incentives to apply for amnesty in the first place: On the one hand, Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus may help to sustain a cartel, otherwise reported under the EC Leniency Program. On the other hand, Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus may induce immediate reporting of both cartels whereas only one of them would have been reported under the EC Leniency Program.

Keywords: Amnesty Plus; Leniency Program; Multimarket Contact; Self-reporting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K21 K42 L41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ind and nep-law
Date: 2007-05

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