European Union anti-cartel policy

Abstract

The fight against cartels started in European Union since its foundation in 1957 and the passing of the Regulation empowering the Commission to enforce competition rules since 1962. However, anti-cartel policy was very ineffective in its early years from 1962 to 1980. It also had a lot of enforcement problems to uncover cartels until 1995. It was in 1996, when the leniency program was set up, when it truly became an increasingly effective policy. The leniency program is a mechanism by which infringing firms that have been active in a cartel can obtain fine reductions by providing hard evidence to the Commission about the existence and functioning of any cartel. The improving of the leniency program in 2002 and 2006, and the adoption of tougher fining policies and settlement procedure, has made cartel-busting policy much more effective in the last decade, but there is still much uncertainty to what extend anti-cartel policy will keep this trend of being more effective in the future.