www.ccp.uea.ac.uk

Quantifying Cartel Duration Using DG Comp Case Reports

(Work in Progress) By

Oindrila DeCentre for Competition Policy

DG Competition Data Workshop, ACLE 2008

Structure of This Presentation

• EC Cartel Database

• Some General Characteristics of EC Prosecuted Cartels

• Some Preliminary Data on Duration of EC Cartels

• Concluding Remarks and Way Forward

EC Cartel Database

• Database contains EC Cartel Cases from 1990-2007

• Data Source: Competition Commission’s decisions from EC Official Journals and CFI and ECJ judgements

• Included cases under Article 81 (1), re-adoptions, exemptions under 81 (3) and negative clearance, their renewals and cases under ECSC treaty

• 98 total cases in the database (3 re-adopted cases).

EC Cartel Database: Types of Decisions

Category Number of CasesExemption Without Conditions/ Obligations 5

Exemption With Conditions/ Obligations 9Infringement Art. 65 ECSC treaty 5

Infringement Art.81 with fine 64

Infringement Art.81 without fine 9

Infringement Art.81 with fine and Infringement Art. 82

6

EC Cartel Database: Reasons to Initiate Proceedings

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Num

ber o

f Cas

es

Characteristics of EC Cartels: Industry Classification

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Industry

Num

ber o

f Cas

es

Characteristics of EC Cartels: Category of Undertakings

Category Number of Cases

Undertakings Only 76

Undertakings and Association (s) of Undertakings 7

Association (s) of Undertakings Only 15

Characteristics of EC Cartels: Number of Undertakings

Histogram of Number of Undertakings

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

2 firms 3-4 firms 5-10 firms 11-20 firms More than 20firms

Number of Undertakings Groups

Num

ber o

f Car

tel C

ases

Characteristics of EC Cartels: Cartels’ Market Coverage

Histogram of Cartel's Market Coverage

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

0-25 25-50 50-75 75-90 90-100

Market Coverage

Num

ber o

f Car

tel C

ases

Characteristics of EC Cartels: Types of Agreements

Category Number of Cases

Price Fixing Only 28

Market sharing only 17

Price fixing and market sharing only 14

Neither Price fixing nor market sharing 1

Price fixing and other supplementary agreements 10

Market sharing and other supplementary agreements 7

Price fixing, market sharing and other supplementary agreements

21

Characteristics of EC Cartels: Types of Supplementary Agreements

Category Number of Cases

Information Exchange Agreement 28

Horizontal Restrictions 7

Supply Restrictions 5

Capacity Restrictions 4

Collective Exclusive Dealing 2

Characteristics of EC Cartels: Ring leader and Market leader

Ring leader 19

Market leader as Ring leader 13

Ring leader but not Market Leader 1

Market leader but not Ring leader 25

Duration: Proven Duration of EC CartelsHistogram of Proven Duration

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

<1 1-5 6-10 11-20 >20Range of Years

Duration: Information on Suspected Duration

Category Number of Cases

Suspected Duration date mentioned 21

Suspected Duration date not mentioned 68

Suspected but exact date not mentioned 9

Duration: Proven vis-à-vis Suspected Duration

Proven vis a vis Suspected Duration

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Proven Duration

Susp

ecte

d D

urat

ion

Duration: Different Dimensions of Duration

Duration Number of Cases

Different members with different duration 36

Different sub-agreements with different duration 6

Different sub-product markets with different duration 3

Different geographic markets with different duration 1

Duration: Entry into and Exit from the Cartel

Entry/ Exit Number of Cases

Entry into Cartels 32

Exit from the Cartel 28

Both Entry and Exit 23

Duration and Number of UndertakingsDuration and Number of Undertakings

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Number of Undertakings

Dur

atio

n

Duration and Cartels’ Coverage

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Cartel's Coverage

Dur

atio

n

Average Duration and Number of Agreements

Number of Agreements Number of Cases Average Duration

Single 45 7.94

Two 29 8.53

Three 22 10.1

Four 1 11

Five 1 7

Way Forward

• Adding Variables (e.g. demand, merger etc)

• Multivariate analysis of duration

• Survival analysis