Transcript Agreements

Pro-active and re-active
detection tools in cartel cases
Lecturer: Mr. Bogdan M. Chiritoiu
President of Romanian Competition Council
ICN Annual Conference, BOS 2: Non-leniency tools
for detecting and investigating cartels
- Sydney, April, 30 2015 -
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Agency Cooperation Tool
Cooperation and coordination with:

Public Prosecutor’s Office

Public Procurement authorities

Other competition authorities, mainly via ECN
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Agency cooperation’s means

Set-up in 2010 of a Tenders Directorate;

Bid-rigging module;

Memo-s of cooperation;

Dissemination of OECD Guidelines for fighting against
bid rigging.
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Highlights. Agency Cooperation tool


1st on-going investigation based on an alleged CIBD
breach referred by a local contracting authority;
E.g. of bid-rigging cases finalized following agency
cooperation:
 natural gas connections: fines of 5.5 million Euro;
 national road markers: fines of approx. 665,000 Euro.
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Industry monitoring

Use of economic indicators:
 fringe competitors, high entry barriers, frequency of interaction,
market transparency, stability of market shares;
 The Aggregated Index of Competitive Pressure;

Electronic interconnection platform created among
different agencies:
 ease of search and collection of relevant information.
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Industry monitoring

Surveillance of legislative developments:
 Change of the rules of the game
or
 Appearance of new markets
E.g. Case of customer market sharing on mandatory
private pension funds market: fines of 1.23 million Euro.
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Industry monitoring

Supervision of situations that could lead to concerted
practices such as „Hub and spoke conspiracy”:
 Screening of
associations;
actions
carried
out
within
the
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Industry monitoring

Intensive activity of monitoring the press and the trade
journals of certain associations;

Collateral investigations, studies and analyses of the
relevant markets;
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Competition Informants platform
Focus of RCC: encouraging the active implication of civil society;

Set-up of the platform: this year

Ensured anonymity to natural persons providing the information in
the system;

Aims:
 diversifying the ways to collect information from the market;
 a more efficient management of the relevant information.
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Thank you for your attention!
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