Modern antitrust engenders a possible conflict between public and private enforcement due to the central role of Leniency Programs. Damage actions may reduce the attractiveness of Leniency Programs for cartel participants if their cooperation with the competition authority increases the chance...

We study the consequences of leniency - reduced legal sanctions for wrongdoers who spontaneously self-report to law enforcers - on sequential, bilateral, illegal transactions, such as corruption, manager-auditor collusion, or drug deals. It is known that leniency helps deterring illegal...

Cartels remain widespread and constitute a major problem for society. Leniency policies reduce or cancel the sanctions for the first firm(s) that self-report being part of a cartel and have become the main enforcement instrument used by competition authorities around the world in their fight...

We revisit the pros and cons of cartel criminalization with focus on its possible introduction in the EU. We document a recent phenomenon that we name EU ``leniency inflation", whereby leniency has been increasingly awarded to many, and sometimes all members of a cartel. We argue that, coupled...