Punishing European Cartels

Antitrust authorities across the world are waging war against domestic and international cartels. The European Commission in particular has intensified its prosecution activities and increased dramatically the fines it imposes on cartelists. This article undertakes a statistical overview of the Commission’s prosecution activities and fines over the last decade of pan-European (and in many cases global) cartels, principally under the current penalty guidelines which became effective on 1 September 2006.