Compliance Programs

In this contribution, the authors, Anne Riley, former Head of Royal Dutch Shell’s global antitrust group, and Paul Lugard, (Baker Botts (Belgium) LLP, provide a tour d’horizon of antitrust compliance-related topics. Drawing on their decades-long experience as, respectively, inhouse antitrust counsel and private practitioner, the authors discuss ten key points for both competition enforcement agencies and compliance […]

Every compliance program plays to two audiences. One is your people: is it effective in reaching them and preventing violations. The second is the government: is your program credible and will it convince enforcers to give you credit for your compliance work. There is quite a bit of guidance about compliance programs out there, from […]

This paper explores the most difficult, challenging, and usually concluding portion of a corporate compliance program – the internal investigation. Unlike the other major components of the compliance program – training and audits – the internal investigation is triggered by a government investigation, whistleblower, or even rumor – it is not an action planned by the […]

In July 2019, the Antitrust Division issued the first written guidance for the evaluation of corporate antitrust compliance programs. Also, for the first time, the Division noted that a robust compliance program would be considered at the charging stage meaning a company could receive favorable treatment based on its compliance program. The Division’s new policy […]

This article examines the U.S. DOJ’s 2019 revision to the Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations related to antitrust compliance programs, concerns about the revision’s possible effects on the U.S. DOJ’s corporate leniency policy, and the likelihood that the revision will lead to meaningfully different enforcement and sentencing outcomes for companies with antitrust compliance programs. The […]

Corporate compliance programs are increasingly the norm, but with great variety among them.  What it means to have an effective antitrust compliance program, however, is not always simple.  Antitrust is full of grey boundaries and so a compliance policy can never completely eliminate antitrust violations as a business risk.  It is possible, however, to create […]

Compliance is the outcome of interactions between firms and competition authorities. For a competition authority to design compliance policy instruments requires understanding the origins of harmful conduct so that firms’ incentives could be changed. This includes adjusting instruments in terms of information gathering, rules and procedures and sanctions. It also needs addressing agency issues and […]

Compliance is every effort an authority does to increase awareness on the importance of competition law, its benefits, and the consequences of infringements. The main goal remains to be the consolidation of a true culture of competition that reflects in the way in which companies do business. In line with this, the CNMC’s efforts to promote […]

Antitrust compliance programmes are not mandatory in Brazil. Nevertheless, the Brazilian antitrust authority, CADE, pays special attention to them. In this regard, CADE institutionally promotes the compliance agenda and, when examining anticompetitive conduct or merger review proceedings, is receptive to compliance programmes’ clauses. Compliance programmes are valuable tools to multiply the effects of competition law […]

CADE has been one of the lead authorities in Brazil to disseminate a compliance culture through its rules, guidance, and case law, which evolved considerably since 2004 and in particular over the past five years. Its enforcement policies and procedures made public in guidelines and proposed regulations confirm that the agency is aware that ensuring […]

This article draws the business community’s and competition agencies’ attention to selected topics that would benefit from more attention when considering effective competition law compliance programmes. It draws on recent discussions in the OECD Competition Committee and the related background paper on Competition Compliance Programmes, however, the views expressed reflect solely the opinion of the […]

Feb 22, 2012 On February 10, the Autorité de la Concurrence in France issued its framework document on compliance programs; we’ve attched a link to it below. Compliance programmes are instruments that enable economic players to increase their chances of avoiding breaches of all kinds of rules that are applicable to their activity, including competition […]