Part III Practical Challenges, 9 European Antitrust Criminalization and the Second Challenge of Design: Understanding the Complexities of Leniency/Immunity

Subject(s):

Cartels — Fines for cartels — Application of EU competition rules

This chapter focuses on the second challenge of design for European antitrust criminalization: articulating and overcoming the unique challenges of criminal immunity for cartelists and responding to the challenge of ensuring peaceful co-existence of both administrative leniency/immunity and criminal cartel sanctions. It identifies three mechanisms that can be useful in resolving any conflict between administrative leniency programmes and criminal sanctions. The first mechanism identified was the creation of a criminal immunity programme for cartel activity. The second mechanism which is designed to resolve any conflict between administrative leniency programmes and criminal sanctions is the linking of the criminal immunity policy with the administrative leniency policy. The third mechanism identified involves dealing with the issue of criminal disclosure.