Regulating Cartels in Europe

The book provides a critical discussion and analysis of that area of European (EU) competition regulation dealing with those serious anti-competitive infringements now commonly referred to as the activity of ‘hard core cartels’. Such prohibited activity typically involves large and economically significant corporate producers and traders operating across Europe and often also in a wider international context, and comprises practices such as price fixing, bid rigging, market sharing, and limiting production, intended to ensure ‘market stability’ and maintain and increase profits. There is now...

The book provides a critical discussion and analysis of that area of European (EU) competition regulation dealing with those serious anti-competitive infringements now commonly referred to as the activity of ‘hard core cartels’. Such prohibited activity typically involves large and economically significant corporate producers and traders operating across Europe and often also in a wider international context, and comprises practices such as price fixing, bid rigging, market sharing, and limiting production, intended to ensure ‘market stability’ and maintain and increase profits. There is now little argument in both competition theory and practice regarding the damaging effect of such activities on public and consumer interests. Globally, over the last thirty years or more, such cartels have been subject to increasing condemnation in the legal process of regulating and protecting competition. The focus of this study is the development of the European-level regulation of such anti-competitive business cartels. The discussion traces the historical development of cartel control in Europe, comparing the more pragmatic and empirical approach historically favoured in Europe with the more dogmatic and uncompromising American policy. In particular, the book considers critically the move more recently in Europe towards criminal law analogies and also fully-fledged criminal proceedings in some areas of legal control, evaluating evolving aspects of enforcement policy such as the use of leniency programmes and the deployment of a range of criminal law and other sanctions. A major theme in the discussion concerns the way in which the subject has evolved from being a section of competition law to a significant and dynamic amalgam of supranational regulatory law, criminal justice strategies, penal competence and basic rights protection.