Enhanced Enforcement Co-operation

Roundtable

Date: 17 June 2014
Location: OECD, Paris

About

International co-operation is a core part of the competition-related work at the OECD. The OECD Competition Committee is at the forefront in shaping of new and more effective forms of co-operation to the benefit of enforcers and business.

In line with the OECD work on international co-operation in competition enforcement, the OECD held a discussion in June 2014 to explore possible new and different forms of co-operation among agencies.

Future challenges agencies may encounter when enforcing domestic laws against cross-border practices were also addressed together with issues such as the recognition of foreign cartel decisions and advantages and disadvantages of voluntary “lead agency” and one-stop-shop” models.

Key findings

The importance of promoting international co-operation is unanimously acknowledged as a key objective of competition authorities across the globe. The lack of sufficient enforcement co-operation can reduce the effectiveness of the enforcement action and consequently create substantial harm to society. In an increasingly globalised economy, the need for more effective international co-operation between antitrust enforcers is perceived as more important than ever before.
International co-operation in competition law enforcement has made significant progress in the last two decades, mainly through the development of bilateral relationships between competition authorities. The discussion highlighted the need to review the scope and degree of the existing co-operation and to explore new and enhanced methods of co-operation between enforcers. Those new methods may also include the development of multilateral frameworks for co-operation.
In order to increase overall deterrence of international cartels, academics have proposed mechanisms which would allow competition authorities or courts in a jurisdiction to rely on the factual findings made in another jurisdiction (so-called recognition of foreign decisions). If in place, such mechanisms could lower the enforcement costs for competition authorities and enable more competition authorities to review international cartels, especially in jurisdictions with few investigative resources, thus increasing the overall level of cartel deterrence.
The business community encourages governments to consider the introduction of one-stop shop models as a way to improve co-operation between enforcers in cross border-cases and to reduce regulatory costs for businesses. Enforcement areas which would potentially lend themselves to one-stop shop models are those which require filings or applications by companies to multiple agencies, such as leniency and markers applications or merger filings.
In order to reduce the substantial transaction costs associated with unco-ordinated parallel antitrust proceedings, some academics have proposed new and more advanced ways in which authorities could co-operate more effectively. Some of these proposals include lead jurisdiction models where one authority is designated to investigate and make a decision on a cross-border case on behalf of all other affected jurisdictions.
In addition to creating new institutional frameworks for enhanced co-operation among authorities, it can also be effective to strengthen personal ties and build stronger relationships between enforcers. For this purpose, some competition authorities have engaged in joint investigative activities and have organised exchanges of staff with their counterparts.

For more read the key findings or the detailed summary of the discussion.