Hear no Evil, See no Evil: Why Antitrust Compliance Programmes may be Ineffective at Preventing Cartels

Andreas Stephan
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Andreas Stephan: Centre for Competition Policy and Norwich Law School, University of East Anglia

No 2009-09, Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) from Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Abstract: Cartel practices attract enormous corporate fines, even where they only involve a handful of employees. Internal compliance programmes are thought to protect firms by training employees and auditing their activities. However, this paper argues that such programmes are ineffective because cartelists typically know what they are doing is illegal, go to great lengths to avoid detection and are usually senior managers. Moreover, compliance programmes do not mitigate cartel fines, despite their being imposed on the whole corporation years after an infringement has occurred. It is argued that the threat of criminal sanctions against individuals is essential to effective internal compliance.

Keywords: Competition Law; Antitrust Compliance; Cartels; Article 81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K14 K21 L40 L41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-02-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uea:ueaccp:2009_09

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