Fines against hard core strongcartelsstrong in Europe the myth of over.pdf

Fines against hard core cartels in Europe: the myth of over enforcement 1 Constance MONNIER Emmanuel COMBE2 PRISM-Sorbonne Working Paper ( January 2010) Abstract : based on a sample of 64 cartels convicted by the European Commission from 1975 to 2009 and a methodology allowing to estimate optimal fines to be imposed on cartels on a case by case basis, this paper compares the level of fines actually inflicted to cartels participants to the illicit gain captured by the firms and estimates a range of restitution and dissuasive fines in each case. Our results show that fines imposed against cartels by the European Commission are overall moderate, whatever the level of the probability of detection. JEL Codes: L40, L41, K21 Key words: Cartels, Antitrust, Competition Policy, European Commission 1Doctor in economics, ATER at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, PRISM Sorbonne, email: constancemonnier@. The authors thank all the participants of the 2009 CCP workshop and annual conference participants for their comments and suggestions (particularly Pr. S. Davies, Pr P. M. Schinkel and Dr. A. Stephan) as well as John Connor. All remaining omissions and opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not reflect the view of their institutions. 2Professor at the University of Paris I, associate professor at ESCP (Business School) and member of the Board of the French Competition Authority. 1 Introduction In recent years, the European Commission has announced its determi