This book reviews progress in the fight against hard core cartels. It quantifies the harm caused by cartels and identifies improved methods of investigation. It also examines progress in strengthening sanctions against businesses and individuals.

Cartel activity is prohibited under EU law by virtue of Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Firms that violate this provision face severe punishment from those entities responsible for enforcing EU competition law: the European Commission, the national competition authorities, and the national courts. Stiff fines are regularly imposed on firms by these entities; such firm-focused punishment is an established feature of the antitrust enforcement landscape within the EU. In recent years, however, focus has also been placed on the individuals within the firms responsible for the cartel activity. It is increasingly recognized that punishment for cartel activity should be individual-focused as well as firm-focused. Accordingly, a growing tendency to criminalize cartel activity can be observed in the EU Member States. The existence of such criminal sanctions within the EU presents a number of crucial challenges that need to be met if the underlying enforcement objectives are to be achieved in practice without violating prevailing legal norms. For a start, given the severe consequences of a custodial sentence, the employment of criminal antitrust punishment must be justifiable in principle: one must have a robust normative framework rationalizing the existence of criminal cartel sanctions. Second, for it to be legitimate, antitrust criminalization should only occur in a manner that respects the mandatory legalities applicable to the European jurisdiction in question. These include the due process rights of the accused and the principle of legal certainty. Finally, the correct practical measures (such as a criminal leniency policy and a correctly defined criminal cartel offence) need to be in place in order to ensure that the employment of criminal antitrust punishment actually achieves its aims while maintaining its legitimacy. These three particular challenges can be conceptualized respectively as the theoretical, legal, and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalization. This book analyses these three crucial challenges so that the complexity of the process of European antitrust criminalization can be understood more accurately. In doing so, this book acknowledges that the three challenges should not be considered in isolation. In fact there is a dynamic relationship between the theoretical, legal, and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalization and an effective antitrust criminalization policy is one which recognizes and respects this complex interaction.

The most comprehensive resource for students on EU competition law; extracts from key cases, academic works, and legislation are paired with incisive critique and commentary from an expert author team.

Major developments have recently taken place in competition and antitrust policy in both the UK and EU. Following an informative overview, this timely book presents authoritative accounts of recent changes and clear analyses of current policy. As well as discussing new developments in policy towards monopolies, mergers, cartels and state aids, it features chapters on the treatment of vertical restraints and regulated industries. The book also includes a discussion of the relationship between competition policy and intellectual property rights, and concludes with a forward-looking assessment.

A RUSA 2007 Outstanding Reference Title The Encyclopedia of the Developing World is a comprehensive work on the historical and current status of developing countries. Containing more than 750 entries, the Encyclopedia encompasses primarily the years since 1945 and defines development broadly, addressing not only economics but also civil society and social progress. Entries cover the most important theories and measurements of development; relate historical events, movements, and concepts to development both internationally and regionally where applicable; examine the contributions of the most important persons and organizations; and detail the progress made within geographic regions and by individual countries.

One of the most contentious and high-profile aspects of EU competition law and policy has been the regulation of those serious competition or antitrust violations now often referred to as 'hard core cartels'. Such cartel activity typically involves large and powerful corporate producers and traders operating across Europe and beyond, and comprise practices such as price fixing, bid rigging, market sharing, and limiting production in order to ensure 'market stability' and maintain and increase profits. There is little disagreement now, in terms of competition theory and policy at both international and national levels, regarding the damaging effect of such trading practices on public and consumer interests, and such cartels have been subject to increasing condemnation in the legal process of regulating and protecting competition. Regulating Cartels in Europe provides critical evaluation of the way in which European-level regulation has evolved to deal with the activities of such anti-competitive business cartels. They trace the historical development of cartel regulation in Europe, comparing the more pragmatic and empirical approached favored in Europe with the more dogmatic and uncompromising American policy on cartels. In particular, the work considers critically the move towards the use of fully fledged criminal proceedings in this area of legal control, examining evolving aspects of enforcement policy such as the use of leniency programs and the deployment of a range of criminal law and other sanctions. This new edition of the work covers emerging themes and arguments in the discipline, including the judicial review of decisions against cartels, the criminological and legal basis of the criminalization of cartel conduct, and the range and effectiveness of sanctions used in response to cartel activity.

The uncovering of a great number of cartels in the industrialised world has left an unfortunate, yet significant, mark on global economic developments in recent years. Globalization has forced firms into more direct competition; the result has been global price-fixing. This situation has greatly challenged antitrust authorities. Taking a broad yet detailed approach, this work sets a practical explanation of the history of cartels and antitrust law in a sound theoretical framework, as well as providing suggestions as to how potential reforms of antitrust laws could improve the situation going forward. The book includes a comprehensive analysis of the motivations behind and perceived necessity for organisations to enter into cartels, and the success or otherwise of legislatures’ attempts to both uncover and prevent such cartels from taking place. A total of 24 price-fixing conspiracies uncovered in the US and Europe are examined as part of the analysis to demonstrate the globalization of collusion.