ANNOUNCEMENT OF PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON LENIENCY PROGRAMME
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
ANTITRUST AUTHORITY PRESENTS DRAFT LENIENCY PROGRAMME
PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS WITH VIEW TO IMPLEMENTATION IN EARLY MONTHS OF 2007
The leniency programme for companies wishing to cooperate with the Antitrust Authority by assisting it in identifying the most serious anti-competitive arrangements will start up in the early months of 2007. The Authority, at its meeting on 6 December, approved a draft of the programme which has today been posted on the Internet so as to allow public consultation to take place, in line with EU practice. Interested parties will have one month to present their observations.
The option for the Italian Competition Authority to make use of leniency programmes, with reduced penalties or even total exemption from penalties for cooperating companies, was introduced into our legal system by Law no. 248 of 4 August 2006(the so-called Bersani-Visco law).
Based on the approved draft, the following are the guidelines for the leniency programme; they may be revised in the light of results from the consultation being launched today.
POTENTIALLY INTERESTED PARTIES
Based on the draft, leniency will be limited to cases involving secret cartels: these constitute the most serious contraventions of competition law and are particularly difficult to demonstrate. Therefore, sufficient incentives are needed to induce companies to desist from their illegal conduct, to advise the Authority of such conduct and to cooperate in proving the misdemeanour.
PROPOSED ‘REDUCTIONS’
The programme stipulates a scale of reduced penalties according to the effectiveness of the collaboration offered by ‘penitent’ companies. The limiting case is that of total immunity for the first company that spontaneously provides the Authority with decisive proof of a secret cartel where that information was unavailable to the Authority. In order to claim total immunity, the company must furnish all the information it has at its disposal: from the identity of the other participants in the agreement, to the nature and duration of said agreement, to the markets which have been distorted by the agreement, to the modus operandi of the cartel.
It is also possible for a company whose cooperation significantly reinforces the Authority's case to obtain a reduction in penalties, usually of not more than 50%. Obviously the timing of the collaboration and the value of the proofs supplied will be taken into account.
Full cooperation with the Authority throughout the investigation is an essential condition for benefiting from the leniency programme. This means that, on pain of exclusion, the company must disclose all relevant information in its possession and must not destroy or alter information or relevant documents or reveal to third parties its participation in the leniency programme.
HOW TO APPLY
A company wishing to take part in the leniency programme must make application to the Authority, attaching the relevant information and documents. It is possible that the company may not be in a position immediately to supply the elements of proof necessary to obtain immunity, but may be able to procure them within a short space of time. In that case, it may present an incomplete application and request that the Authority fix a date for completing the application with the information and documentation relevant to the case.
Finally, in order to reduce the administrative burden on companies, the draft programme foresees the possibility of presenting an application for immunity in a simplified form where companies deem that the European Commission is best placed to conduct the investigation into the cartel in question.
Rome, 7 December 2006