bonuses blinding our employees to the importance of
important to continually monitor and review how it is
working. It is a good idea to include it as a management
function and to report on it regularly; for example,
department heads should regularly sign a declaration (e.g.
annually or half yearly) that they and their respective
departments are operating in compliance with the law.
Monitoring is important to establish whether the
programme is working well and that it is properly
supported within the organisation. It is also important to
see if the measures you put in place are effective in
preventing infringements of competition law and from time
to time to make sure that the risks have not changed.
law compliance programme can best be described as a virtuous
circle, looking something as follows:
help you when setting up a competition law compliance
programme.
any business should be a comprehensive self assessment
exercise. This identifies and assesses the risk that you and or
your business might breach competition law.
including its markets and culture and to analyse the business'
agreements, processes and practices and to identify specific
aspects of competition law that may come into play.
can give rise to problems in the area of compliance with com-
petition law. The reason for this is that staff from sales and
marketing departments often interact with competitors, either
directly or indirectly (through customers or suppliers). Commercial
pressure on staff such as the need to earn commission and
chasing targets can at times become too important and can
lead staff to sidestep compliance and to take the easier, illegal
route to success by colluding with competitors on price or the
allocation of customers or markets. For example, the Authority
discovered in the minutes of a meeting of cartel members in
the Citroen Car Dealers case, the following quote:
spirit of communication and co-operation and trust and