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Pro-active and re-active detection tools in cartel cases

Lecturer: Mr. Bogdan M. ChiritoiuPresident of Romanian Competition Council

ICN Annual Conference, BOS 2: Non-leniency tools for detecting and investigating cartels

- Sydney, April, 30 2015 -

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Agency Cooperation Tool

Cooperation and coordination with:

Public Prosecutor’s Office

Public Procurement authorities

Other competition authorities, mainly via

ECN

Agency cooperation’s means

Set-up in 2010 of a Tenders Directorate;

Bid-rigging module;

Memo-s of cooperation;

Dissemination of OECD Guidelines for fighting

against bid rigging.

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Highlights. Agency Cooperation tool

1st on-going investigation based on an alleged CIBD breach referred by a local contracting authority;

E.g. of bid-rigging cases finalized following agency cooperation:

natural gas connections: fines of 5.5 million Euro;

national road markers: fines of approx. 665,000 Euro.4

Industry monitoring Use of economic indicators:

fringe competitors, high entry barriers, frequency of interaction, market transparency, stability of market shares;

The Aggregated Index of Competitive Pressure;

Electronic interconnection platform created among different agencies:

ease of search and collection of relevant information.5

Industry monitoring

Surveillance of legislative developments: Change of the rules of the game

or

Appearance of new markets

E.g. Case of customer market sharing on mandatory private pension funds market: fines of 1.23 million Euro.

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Industry monitoring

Supervision of situations that could lead to concerted practices such as „Hub and spoke conspiracy”:

Screening of actions carried out within the associations;

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Industry monitoring

Intensive activity of monitoring the press and the

trade journals of certain associations;

Collateral investigations, studies and analyses of

the relevant markets;

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Competition Informants platform

Focus of RCC: encouraging the active implication of civil society;

Set-up of the platform: this year

Ensured anonymity to natural persons providing the

information in the system;

Aims:

diversifying the ways to collect information from the

market;

a more efficient management of the relevant information.

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Thank you for your attention!