This thesis studies the impact, determinants, organization, internal dynamics and characteristics of Dutch cartels during a period in which most cartels were legal. We concentrate on the legal-cartel era defined as the period 1935–1998 wherein the Dutch legislation was cartel friendly. The...

We explain why competing firms form collective entities to buy patents from other entities, particularly from non-producing entities (NPEs), and follow a catch and release patent strategy. We show why competitors bidding as a single unit is better than competitors bidding against each other and...

The paper explores the interdependencies between corporate and individual leniency programs. In a duopoly model where corporations are separated into representing owners and operating managers, conflicts between the two types of agents arise if the relative benefits of participating in the...

The fight against cartels is a priority for antitrust authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. What differs between the EU and the US is not the basic toolkit for achieving deterrence, but to whom it is targeted. In the EU, pecuniary sanctions against the firm are the only instruments...

Firm strategies cannot be analyzed without taking into consideration the legal framework which governs the relationships between economic agents, especially competition law. As a consequence, firms have to maneuver through a complex universe, taking account of both the rules of the economic game...

For criminal violations of the Sherman Act, although guided by federal sentencing guidelines, U.S. Department of Justice has great latitude in recommending corporate cartel fines to the federal courts, and its recommendations are nearly always determinative. In this paper, we analyze the...

This Article examines whether the current penalties in the United States Sentencing Guidelines are set at the appropriate levels to deter illegal price fixing cartels optimally. The authors analyze two data sets to determine how high on average cartels raise prices. The first consists of every...

This paper finds evidence of an inverse U shape in the number of cartels detected by a Competition Agency (CA) over its lifetime. We interpret this as evidence that, as the CA builds up experience in enforcement, this feeds back into the business community to deter future cartel formation. We...

The European Commission introduced in its 2006 revision of the Leniency programme the concept of ‘marker' which is a temporary protection for potential leniency applicants while they prepare a full leniency application. The object of the marker is to grant companies some predictability on the...

There have been a number of studies attempting to quantify the impact of cartels and mergers on prices. The state of the art of empirical analysis related to antitrust is best illustrated by the research of John Connor and John Kwoka. Connor summarizes the existing empirical research that...