Antitrust Screening: Making Compliance Programs Robust

Abstract

One of the prime issues in the antitrust and competition law1 compliance field is how to deal with the risk of collusive or cartel behavior which involves willful violations of the law. In the past much of antitrust compliance work has focused on training, perhaps accompanied by an antitrust compliance manual. But regardless of the amount of employee training they conduct and the existence of written materials, it is likely that most practitioners feel they do not have a handle on this area of risk. In this paper we discuss the role that empirical screens for conspiracies and manipulations can play in assisting compliance programs, by looking at certain quantifiable red flags and applying statistical analysis to determine priority areas which merit further focus.

Keywords: Screens, Conspiracies, Manipulations, Detection, Investigations, Compliance Programs, Internal Monitoring

JEL Classification: C32, K21, K22