8. Compliance and Individual Sanctions in the Enforcement of Competition Law

Think of recent recalls, e.g., for Takata airbags (Tabuchi and Ivory 2016); for the defect in the ignition switch for GM vehicles, which resulted in a criminal penalty of $900 million and private settlements of at least a further $600 million (Wright 2015) in addition to a large-scale recall (Vlasic and Stout 2014); or for the defect leading to uncontrolled acceleration in Toyota vehicles, resulting, inter alia, in a financial penalty of $1.2 billion (see Department of Justice 2014a).

See, e.g., the Siemens scandal (on the consequences for compliance, see, e.g., Sindhu 2009). Good relations to the government may help, cf Adams and Boxell (2006) on the attorney-general’s intervention in the investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into alleged corruption of BAE in Saudi Arabia.

See, e.g., the HSBC case (Department of Justice 2012).

See European Commission, Cartel Statistics, https://​perma.​cc/​KP5P-4GGJ, Table 1.4 (court adjusted) (at the time of writing last changed on 6 April 2016; for periodically updated statistics see http://​ec.​europa.​eu/​competition/​cartels/​statistics/​statistics.​pdf).

Ibid. The amounts do not seem to be adjusted for inflation, however.

Ibid.

Ibid, Table 1.8 (at the time of writing last changed 6 April 2016).

Ibid, Table 1.10 (at the time of writing last changed 6 April 2016). The number of immunity recipients was 20, 25, and 21, for the three 5 year periods from 2001 to 2005, 2006 to 2010, and 2011 to 2015, respectively (see Wils 2016), thus accounting fairly precisely for the jump to around 30 cartel cases in each of these periods from the baseline of about 10 cartel cases per 5-year period before 2000.

See Lianos et al. (2014, p. 129) (the average fine for the full period from 2010 to 2014 is only about €41 million, as opposed to the €50 million reported in that report, because the report was published in May 2014 and could not take into account later events, which included both the downward court adjustment of cartel fines and a number of lower fines imposed in 2014).

European Commission, n. 4, Table 1.6 (at the time of writing last updated 6 April 2016).

Ibid, Table 1.11 (at the time of writing last updated 31 December 2015).

Employing risk averse, civic-minded bureaucrat-type personalities would arguably reduce the danger of cartels, but may be suboptimal in terms of vigorous competition.

Levenstein and Suslow (2011, pp. 462–463) look at 81 cartels with participants from at least two jurisdictions (“international cartels”) that were prosecuted in the US or the EU with start dates from 1990; they find a mean duration of 8.1 years (standard deviation s = 5.8 years) and a median of 7 years (see also ibid, pp. 463–464, citing older studies that report similar means of between 5.3 and 8.3 years). Combe and Monnier (2011, p. 243) consider a sample of 64 European cartels between 1975 and 2009 and find a mean duration of 7 years. Bryant and Eckard (1991) look at a sample of 184 detected cartel cases (US Department of Justice cases from the period between 1961 and 1988) and find a mean duration of between 5.2 and 7.3 years (with a median of between 3.6 and 5.8 years) (the ranges indicate the lowest and highest duration estimates, respectively). See also Harrington and Wei (2015), who argue that the estimated duration derived from the average duration of detected cartels is only mildly biased because of two countervailing effects: on the one hand, when cartels are detected, their lifetime is cut short, and so for that reason they may have a shorter duration than those cartels that are not detected, and additionally, the probability of dying cartels to be detected may be higher (in particular because this transforms the stag-hunt-game of leniency programmes into prisoners’ dilemmas); on the other hand, longer cartels may be overrepresented in the sample of detected cartels because they are more likely to be detected at some point in their lifetime.

In the United Kingdom, it was held that the ex turpi causa doctrine prevented the undertaking from seeking indemnification from employees and directors, because the Chapter I prohibition and Article 101 TFEU are addressed to the undertaking itself. Safeway Stores Ltd and others v Twigger and others, [2010] EWCA Civ 1472, [2011] Bus. L.R. 1629 (for a discussion, see, e.g., Kapp and Hummel 2011). The UK Supreme Court has recently indicated that it may not unreservedly stand behind Safeway v Twigger, see Les Laboratoires Servier and another v Apotex Inc and others, [2014] UKSC 55, [2015] A.C. 430, 451 [45]: “[T]his is not a case in which any question arises as to the correctness or otherwise of a decision such as that of the Court of Appeal in Safeway Stores Ltd v Twigger […], which held that a company could not recover from directors or employees who had by involving the company in acts contravening the Competition Act 1998 caused it to incur a ‘personal’ liability for penalties imposed under that Act.” In Germany, the Landesarbeitsgericht Düsseldorf reached the same result by a similar route: indemnification was held to run counter the purposes of the fine imposed on the undertaking; this was considered to be in particular the case where the fine incorporates elements of disgorgement of illegal gains; and the possibility of imposing fines on the undertaking and the individual was considered to preclude the possibility for the undertaking to seek indemnification from the responsible individuals, both individuals in management (LAG Düsseldorf, 20 January 2015, 16 Sa 459/14, Neue Juristische Online-Zeitschrift 2015, 782, 789 ff.; the court below had considered capping the damages claim at the maximum amount for the individual fine) and employees (LAG Düsseldorf, 27 November 2015, 14 Sa 800/14, BeckRS 2016, 65558, para 164 (obiter, because the court considered the employee’s participation in the cartel not to be proven, ibid, paras 180 ff.)).

While Director & Officers’ Insurance could lead to deeper pockets, D&O Insurance will not cover willful law infringements.

See on the one hand Combe and Monnier (2011), pp. 267–268 (finding that in about half of the cases the fines did not even skim off the gains, so that they would not even be deterrent if the detection probability were 100 %) and on the other hand Allain et al. (2013) (finding that between 30 and 80 % of the fines imposed from 2005 to 2010 were deterrent, depending largely on the assumptions about the competitive mark-up in the counterfactual, about the cartel overcharge, and about the demand elasticities).

I say only “nearly costlessly” because any extension of scope or duration of the cartel or intensification of cartel activity would increase the probability of detection of the cartel, so that the expected fine would rise. Nevertheless, if the cartel is considered to be profitable in the first place, it is likely that the marginal increase in the detection probability would be lower than the marginal increase in cartel profits where, for example, the cartel duration is extended.

See point 35 of the Fining Guidelines. See also Almunia and Lewandowski (2010); Monopolkommission (2014), § 148.

At least the following EU jurisdictions provide for criminal sanctions for cartels (or, where noted, only bid rigging): Austria (bid rigging only, Ablasser-Neuhuber and Neumayr 2015, p. 19); Belgium (Lebrun and Bersou 2015, p. 25: ‘Bid rigging is the sole cartel activity which is likely to lead to criminal sanctions’); the Czech Republic (Fiala 2015, p. 65); Denmark (since 2013, Rung-Hansen 2015, p. 71); France (Viros 2016); Germany (bid rigging; Wagner-von Papp 2011; Wagner-von Papp 2016; Zimmer 2016); Greece (Papadopoulos and Lovdahl Gormsen 2015, p. 107); Hungary (bid rigging; Szabó 2015, p. 120); Ireland (Andrews and Collins 2015, pp. 137–138; for more detail see Massey and Cooke 2011, p. 105); Italy (Caiazzo and Costantini 2015, p. 154); Poland (bid rigging only, Hansberry-Bieguńska and Krasnodębska-Tomkiel 2015, p. 214); Romania (separate provisions for cartels and bid rigging, Rădulescu and Iacob 2015, p. 229); Slovenia (Pipan Nahtigal and Lahovnik 2015, pp. 247–248); UK (for the amended cartel offence, see Stephan 2014; Gilbert 2015; for the 2002 version, see Stephan 2008; Joshua 2011, p. 129). This does not even include criminal sanctions for procedural offences, such as in Cyprus or Finland. Finland, and Sweden (and in the EFTA Switzerland) considered, but eventually rejected criminalisation. In the EEA, Norway has also criminal sanctions (Sando and Hageler 2015, p. 208). For a global overview of criminalisation see Campbell 2015; Shaffer, Nesbitt and Weber Waller (2015). To be sure, in many of these jurisdictions this is pure law in the books without any significant enforcement. Yet even this law in the books may become relevant when it comes to extradition, see below Sect. 8.5.

For example, the following Member States provide for administrative sanctions for individuals (such as fines and/or director disqualifications), either in addition or as an alternative to criminal sanctions. Germany provides for individual fines of up to €1 million for all intentional or negligent competition law infringements, in addition to the criminal bid-rigging offence (see below Sect. 8.3.2). The UK provides, in addition to the criminal cartel offence, for director disqualification orders (see below Sect. 8.3.1). Greek law provides, in addition to the criminal cartel offence, for individual administrative fines of between €200,000 and €2 million (Papadopoulos and Lovdahl Gormsen 2015, p. 107). Slovenia, also in addition to its criminal cartel offence, provides for individual administrative fines of between €5000 and 30,000 (Pipan Nahtigal and Lahovnik 2015, p. 248). Lithuania, while not providing for criminal liability, provides for individual fines and director disqualifications (Kolesnikovas 2015, p. 176). The Netherlands considered re-criminalising cartels, but eventually decided against it (Frese 2014, pp. 222–224), but Dutch law does provides for individual administrative fines of up to €450,000 (de Pree and Molin 2015, p. 197; Frese 2014, pp. 202–208). Portugal provides for administrative fines on individuals, albeit of a very low magnitude (between approximately €1000 and 5000, Marques Mendes and Vilarinho Pires 2015, pp. 222–223). Article 63.2 of the Spanish Competition Act provides for administrative fines of up to €60,000 for individuals (see Jiménez-Laiglesia et al 2015, p. 262). Swedish law provides for “injunctions against trading” similar to director disqualifications (Pettersson et al. 2015, p. 269). With effect from January 2015, Poland introduced administrative fines on individuals of up to 2 million Polish zlotys (at the time of writing: approximately €455,000) (Motyka-Mojkowski 2015, pp. 1109–1111; Hansberry-Bieguńska and Krasnodębska-Tomkiel 2015, p. 214). There are special criminal prohibitions against bid rigging, for example, in Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Poland.

CMA (2014: § 1.3). Until s 47 of the ERRA 2013 came into force on 1 April 2014, the conduct had to be shown to be “dishonest”.

s 190(4) EA 2002.

Ibid [31].

For a summary, see Blake 2015.

s 188A EA 2002, as amended by s 47(5) ERRA 2013.

s 188B(1), (2) EA 2002, as amended by s 47(6) ERRA 2013.

s 188B(3) EA 2002, as amended by s 47(6) ERRA 2013.

Wils (2013). The National Audit Office (2016) noted: “The low caseflow we identified in 2010 has continued, with the Office of Fair Trading and the CMA making 24 decisions and the regulators just eight since 2010. The UK competition authorities issued only £65 million of competition enforcement fines between 2012 and 2014 (in 2015 prices), compared to almost £1.4 billion of fines imposed by their German counterparts. The CMA faces significant barriers in increasing its flow of competition cases, although recent activity means it now has 12 ongoing cases.”

s 204 EA 2002, amending the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (c. 46) and inserting ss 9A–9E into that Act.

Bundestags-Drucksache 1/3462, Annex 1, 21–22 and Bundestags-Drucksache 2/1158, Annex 1, 27–28, quoted in Wagner-von Papp (2010a, p. 281; 2011, p. 164).

§ 47 Gesetz über Ordnungswidrigkeiten (OWiG). The Bundeskartellamt is empowered to publish guidelines in particular on the setting of the fine, and has done so as far as fines for undertakings and associations of undertakings are concerned. The latest version are the 2013 Guidelines. Bundeskartellamt, Guidelines for the Setting of Fines in Cartel Administrative Offence Proceedings, 25 June 2013, https://​perma.​cc/​T3L5-WDHD.

Bundeskartellamt, Notice no 9/2006, Notice no. 9/2006 of the Bundeskartellamt on the immunity from and reduction of fines in cartel cases—Leniency Programme—of 7 March 2006, https://​perma.​cc/​LNS9-NZ8Q.

§ 81(4) GWB. Theoretically, this maximum could be exceeded where this is necessary to skim off illegal gains, § 17(4) of the Gesetz über Ordnungswidrigkeiten (OWiG), which applies with the modification in § 81(5) GWB.

The following paragraph partially replicates what I wrote in Wagner-von Papp (2016), § 15.

BVerfG, 19 December 2012, 1 BvL 18/11, WuW/E DE-R 3766, paragraphs 52, 60—Verzinsungspflicht, available at http://​www.​bverfg.​de/​entscheidungen/​ls20121219_​1bvl001811.​html (in German).

Ibid., paragraph 60.

Bundeskartellamt, 2 April 2014, Fallbericht Bußgelder gegen Brauereien (Summary Case Report on the decisions of 27 December 2013 and 31 March 2014, Case B10-105/11), http://​www.​bundeskartellamt​.​de/​SharedDocs/​Entscheidung/​DE/​Fallberichte/​Kartellverbot/​2014/​B10-105-11.​pdf?​_​_​blob=​publicationFile&​v=​1.

BGH, 19 June 2007—KRB 12/07, NJW 2007, 3792, WuW/E DE-R 2225, § 10—Papiergroßhandel (Wholesale Paper).

In the Cement case, the individual fine of €200,000 imposed on the individual “Ed. Sch.” was reduced by 5 % (€10,000) on appeal because of the long duration of the appeal procedure, BGH, 26 February 2013—KRB 20/12, WuW/E DE-R 3861, §§ 1, 87–91—Grauzement (Cement).

Second sentence of § 17(3) of the Administrative Offences Act (OWiG).

E.g., in the Cement case, the lowest of the fines for nine individual appellants was only €6000, BGH, n. 42. In another cartel case, the Higher Regional Court Düsseldorf set a fine of some €40,000 for one of the individuals, OLG Düsseldorf, 29 May 2015, V-2 Kart 1 + 2/13 (OWi), NRWEntscheidungen. For a discussion of the factors influencing the setting of the individual fines in an information exchange case, see OLG Düsseldorf, 29 October 2012, V-1 Kart 1–6/12 (OWi) §§ 140–96, NRWEntscheidungen—Silostellgebühren.

See, for example, OLG Hamm, 5 June 1996, 4 Ss 60/96. Further references in Mayer Lux (2013, p. 224 ff.).

LG Munich II (2006); Wagner-von Papp (2011), pp. 169–170.

BGH, 29 April 2015, 1 StR 235/14, BeckRS 2015, 12466; Wagner-von Papp (2016), § 14.

Where the suspected offence carries a minimum prison sentence, § 49b StGB applies, and the court may either reduce the sentence under § 49 StGB or may abstain from imposing any sentence. This could become relevant for our context where a leniency applicant committed aggravated fraud.

Bundeskartellamt, Press Releases of 10 February 2012, 15 April 2013, and 3 June 2014.

In 2012 Ireland considered the decriminalisation of non-hardcore offences, but this was given up when its Attorney General advised that substantial civil fines could raise constitutional concerns under Article 38 of the Irish Constitution.

The recommendation awards criminal immunity to perpetrators where the competition authority awards immunity from fines to the undertaking, but excludes immunity for the sole instigator and coercers. A debate is to be had whether this should not be reduced to excluding at most coercers, so as not to deter leniency applications from instigators; otherwise, especially cartels with only two members would be stabilised. More importantly, the recommendation would have to be amended to take account of individual leniency applications.

Links to the transcripts are contained in Hammond (2005); the videos themselves are available on Youtube.

“[The poor have] to work under the majestic equality of the law, which prohibits the rich and the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread”.

European Commission (2014a), § 41: “The majority of Member States provide for sanctions to be imposed on individuals for breaches of competition law, over and above fines on undertakings. If such systems do not provide for leniency for the employees of undertakings which are considering applying for corporate leniency, this may lead to disincentives to cooperate with authorities EU-wide. The threat of investigations and sanctions targeted at employees may deter potential corporate applicants from applying.” Even more clearly European Commission (2014b), §§ 99–102, highlighting the interjurisdictional externalities of the threat of criminal sanctions.