Settlements in cartel cases

There is little doubt that the fight against cartels is one of the most important objectives of Antitrust Authorities, and the European Commission (EC herewith) represents no exception in this regard. While the Leniency Policy has been successful in triggering evidence by cartel participants and thus in determining the collapse of several cartels, it has not reduced considerably the length of the cartel proceedings, which is another potential benefit of leniency programmes. In this paper we find that a 10% fine reduction to firms which agree to settle with the Commission may be too weak an incentive for firms to settle. This means that the settlements participation rate will not be high enough to effectively reduce the duration of cartel proceeding.