Economic approaches to determining criminal sanctions focus on harm-based “optimal” penalties. In this note, we examine the extent to which the criminal fines for organizations convicted of price fixing contained in the United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines (USSG) and relied on by...

We revisit the pros and cons of cartel criminalization with focus on its possible introduction in the EU. We document a recent phenomenon that we name EU ``leniency inflation", whereby leniency has been increasingly awarded to many, and sometimes all members of a cartel. We argue that, coupled...

This paper presents a moral hazard model analyzing the agent's incentive to commit corporate crime. The principal can only observe profits which the agent can increase by committing crime or exerting effort. It is shown how different incentive contracts, i.e., thresholdlinear, capped bonus and...

Antitrust and competition law have grown dramatically in importance and significance over the last fifty years. US antitrust law has been the principal source of inspiration for jurisdictions wishing to introduce regulation to control cartels and monopolization, and antitrust regulation has now...

Die deutsche Version des Papers ist abrufbar unter: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3337826So far, leniency programmes have been widely used to combat cartels. A company participating in the cartel gets a reduction of its fine for the initial notification of the Antitrust Authorities (AA). The...

Algorithmic competition has arrived. With it has come the specter of algorithmic collusion – rapid detection of co-conspirators’ defection via technologically enhanced price monitoring and setting capability can encourage anticompetitive collusion. Strikingly, the ability to track...

Collusion by companies through cartels harms consumers by fixing prices and restricting output. To combat cartels, leniency programs are frequently used in the European Union (EU). Penalty is reduced for the company that reports the cartel, to the Antitrust Authorities first. The induced trust...

With a view to reducing the consequences of corruption in public procurement, many governments have introduced debarment of suppliers found guilty of corruption and some other forms of crime. This paper explores the market effects of debarment on public procurement. Debarment is found to make...

A substantial number of cartels in the European Union are detected and enforced by the national competition authorities (NCAs). The effectiveness of domestic enforcement has been subject to extensive review and debates, which have recently culminated and resulted in the proposal for the ECN+...

Prior to the return of democracy in 1999, the Nigerian economy was characterised by government-sponsored monopolies and subsidies in key sectors of the economy. This led to the concentration of market power in the hands of few firms. Post-1999 marked a departure from that norm and the...