The European Commission has ratcheted up potential fines on companies which violate competition law to send a clear message that regulators will not tolerate cartels.
'Don't break the anti-trust rules; if you do, stop it as quickly as possible, and once you've stopped, don't do it again,' said EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. 'If companies do not pay attention to these signals, they will pay a very high price,' she stressed.
Under new guidelines, the commission set a basic fine of up to 30% of a company's sales of the product in the market where the abuse had taken place. The fine will also be multiplied by the number of years during which a company participates in the infringement.
But the overall ceiling for fines remains 10% of global annual turnover. In addition, the commission introduced another fine to discourage cartels, which would be calculated as a sum equal to 15-25% of a company's annual sales, whatever the duration of the infringement.
The commission added that repeat offenders would also be fined more than in the past. Up to now, the commission's practice has been to increase a fine by 50% where the company has been found to have been previously involved in one or more similar infringements.
Under the new rules, the commission could increase the fine up to 100%.
