International law firm Clifford Chance today launches the second edition of its Global Antitrust Trends report. This year, the firm considers the top 10 antitrust risks facing businesses around the world and the most effective strategies for minimising those risks.
The report analyses 10 trends, including the following highlights:
- Cartels: since 2011, the number of cartel infringement decisions in major jurisdictions[1] has fallen yet the value of the fines imposed has increased. The report considers whether this trend may be a reflection of the increasing complexity of cross-border cartel investigations.
- Antitrust Contagion: Private Equity firms and corporate parent companies are increasingly facing liability for the antitrust breaches of their portfolio or subsidiary companies. Our 'Antitrust Contagion' map highlights the countries where firms are most at risk of incurring liability for breaches of this nature. The map finds that Brazil, South Africa and most of Europe are high risk whereas the US, Canada and Russia are deemed low risk.
- Private enforcement of antitrust law has developed at different rates across Europe. Adopted in November 2014, the EU Damages Directive aims to harmonise the varying opportunities for victims of infringements to EU Antitrust rules to obtain full compensation for the harm they have suffered, across the different member states.
- Public disclosures of competitively sensitive information can carry antitrust risks where it amounts to "price signalling" between competitors, and is attracting increasing regulatory attention.
- The landscape in China and the rest of Asia: the Chinese Antitrust regulators (the NDRC and SAIC), have recently stepped up enforcement activity and 2015 looks set to be a decisive year in terms of how practices develop. Both have shown a willingness to develop their procedures and respond to criticism in their handling of a number of high profile cases against foreign companies.
Thomas Vinje, Chairman of Clifford Chance's Global Antitrust Group comments: "We are delighted to launch our 2015 Global Antitrust Trends report today which aims to offer readers our insights into the risks faced by our clients in this highly regulated and scrutinised world we operate in. With risk also comes opportunity and in this report we demonstrate ways in which we can help clients navigate and minimise these risks, irrespective of the jurisdiction or sector."
Business risk is top of our clients' agendas. Clifford Chance's Global Risk Team brings together governance, risk and compliance expertise from across the firm, helping clients to tackle the challenges facing global businesses in current environment. Business risk related themes were explored in our Global Risk Report 2014, please visit www.cliffordchance.com/GlobalRiskReport to download a copy.
