Triggering Inspections Ex Officio: Moving Beyond a Passive EU Cartel Policy

Abstract

The implementation of leniency programs is considered a success both at EU Community level and in individual member states. The paper discusses the value of ex officio investigations for cartel detection in light of leniency and complaint based cases. Are ex officio investigations still needed? Should a competition authority concentrate its scarce resources exclusively on the prosecution of leniency or complaint based cases or follow a pro-active market monitoring policy? It is argued that investigations triggered ex officio are an important complementary enforcement tool to the other passive instruments available to a competition authority. A bottom-up methodology for triggering inspections based on economic criteria is presented allowing for a more pro active cartel policy.