Barbara Schulze

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ICN Cartel Workshop Cape Town

• Mini Plenary IV Information Sharing Barriers,
  Waives and Challenges,

• Cape Town, 17 October 2013

• Barbara Schulze
• Bundeskartellamt
• International Competition Matters

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Overview

1. Cooperation and information sharing is a
   bilateral exercise - Knowing each other is key.
2. Legal frameworks barriers to information
   sharing
3. Ways to overcome these barriers
4. Challenges to cooperation
5. Case example The Mills Case (DE, F, NL)
6. Informal exchange of information

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I.1 Who am I - The Bundeskartellamt

• Institutional design
• President, Vice-President
• General Policy Division, International Unit
• Litigation Department, Specialised Unit
• 12 Decision Divisions (3 specialized on cartels)
• Independent bodies, decisions taken by Head of
  division 2 Rapporteurs by majority vote (court
  like structure)
• Bundeskartellamt budget 25 Mio.
• Around 320 employees (140 legal
  experts/economists)

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The Bundeskartellamt - Organisation
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The Bundeskartellamts legal framework

• Art. 101 and 102 TFEU, EU-Regulations and
  Guidelines
• Act against Restraints of Competition
• (enacted1958, 8th Amendment of 30 June, 2013)
• Administrative regulations of the
  Bundeskartellamt
• i.e. leniency programme, guidelines on the
  setting of fines
• Administrative Offences Act
• Code of Criminal Procedure

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BKArtA-Enforcement Activities - Cartels

• Cartel Cases 2012
• Number of leniency applications 51
• Number of dawn raids 8
• 5 for the European Commission
• 1 for competition agencies of other EU Member
  States
• Number of cartel cases closed 21
• Total fines 316 million

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Enforcement Activities - Cartels

• Recent cases recent experience
• Price fixing of coffee roasters working group of
  directors and sales managers of different coffee
  roasters coordinated price increases for roasted
  coffee in the out-of-house market (supply of
  gastronomy, hotels, )
• Agreements on quotas for fire engines
  companies' sales managers of two producers of
  fire engines with turntable ladders (combined
  market share of nearly 100) divided tenders
  among each other on the basis of project lists to
  divide the market up in a ratio of 50/50
• Territorial agreements between liquefied gas
  suppliers suppliers agreed not to poach
  customers from one another. Customers wishing to
  switch supplier were either not quoted a price,
  or if at all, an excessive deterrent price.

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I.2 Who is the other?- Cooperation with other
agencies (1)

• National
• Regional Cartel Authorities (16 Länder)
• Ministry of Economics (not in cartel cases)
• Europe
• European Commission
• European Competition Network (ECN)

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Cooperation with other agencies (2)

• International
• International Competition Network (ICN)
• Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
  Development (OECD)
• United Nations Conference on Trade and
  Development (UNCTAD)
• Bilateral cooperation special USA, Switzerland

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II. Barriers to information sharing

• Legal barriers
• Confidentiality
• Professional secrecy
• Data protection
• Other
• Factual barriers
• Different legal systems and cultures
• Language barriers
• Resources (you just cannot do it)

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III. Overcoming the barriers

• ECN
• Information exchange for network purposes
• Information exchange for use in evidence
• National information gateways
• Available in several countries
• Germany Sec. 50 b ARC
• Bilateral Treaties
• Gemany-USA EU-Switzerland
• Waivers

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IV. Challenges

• Legal even within the ECN remaining
  uncertainties about certain grey zones (eg do
  double standards apply or those of transmitting
  agency)
• Personal resources, languages, time zones,
  different instutional set-up, mutal trust, in
  particular in view of past experience,
• Factual effects of cooperation or
  non-cooperation on strategies of leniency
  applications and defendants

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V. Case Example the mills case

• Cartel proceedings in DE, FR and NL against the
  milling industry common legal framework on
  substance, but national procedures.
• Leniency applications in each country,
  coordination of course of investigation, in
  particular the setting of fines.
• But difficulties to coordinate timing in view of
  national constraints and different institutional
  organisation.
• Fined behaviour different in each country, no
  ibis in idem but
• Financial limitations of defendants, inability to
  pay.

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VI. Informal information exchange

• Informal exchanges can get already help
• Keeping in mind that definition of confidential
  might differ
• OECD started work on definitions asked members
  to provide information on their legal framework
• Exchange views on theories of harm, share
  publicly available information on cases, markets,
  else
• Provide information on timing
• Limitations

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Thank you!

• For further information
• http//www.bundeskartellamt.de/wEnglisch/index.php
  
• http//www.bundeskartellamt.de/wDeutsch/download/p
  df/Merkblaetter/Merkblaetter_englisch/ICN_Anti-Car
  tel_Enforcement_Template_2013.pdf
• Barbara Schulze
• Head of Unit
• International Competition Matters
• Bundeskartellamt
• Kaiser-Friedrich-Str. 16
• D-53113 Bonn
• Tel 49 (0) 228 / 94 99 - 240
• Fax 49 (0) 228 / 94 99 - 144
• E-Mail barbara.schulze_at_bundeskartellamt.bund.de
• Internet www.bundeskartellamt.de