1 - The Quest to Create an Effective Set of Competition Law Sanctions

Summary

The chapter summarizes the most important issues of the research topic, with a special focus on the goals of sanctioning competition law infringements. Without efficient sanctions, there is a serious risk that competition rules would not be taken seriously, which would in turn undermine the performance of our market economy. Sanctions, deterrence and respect for law are inseparable friends. Although there seems to be a global consensus that the ultimate goal is optimal deterrence, this goal exists more on the policy level than in the calculation of the amount of fines and other sanctions in actual cases. The chapter discusses various options for measuring the efficiency of fines, concluding that this discussion can be pursued only at an academic level. A mix of sanctions can bring about optimal deterrence, including personal administrative sanctions. Two hypothetical cartel cases with likely fines imposed in various jurisdictions are presented to show that even similarly structured sanctioning regimes may result in a diverging level of sanctions being imposed due to diverging national approaches.