Complying with Competition Law Page 19

Complying with Competition Law

Stage 3: Implementation and training

The compliance officer should prepare a written statement of
the business' commitment to comply with competition law.
Ideally it will go beyond legal compliance and include a
commitment to conduct business ethically, with integrity and
apply best practices. It should explain why it is good for the
business to behave this way. Creating a culture of ethics and
compliance will help to keep the business on the straight and
narrow.

The proper functioning of a compliance programme is linked to
other policies such as performance management, code of
conduct and disciplinary policy and should have proper
compliance measures and procedures as part of it.

It is important when implementing the compliance programme to
make it explicitly clear to employees that they will be held per-
sonally responsible for any actions and decisions that infringe
competition law. The business' other policies and procedures
should take into account sanctions and disciplinary measures
which will be imposed on employees involved in breaches of
competition law. Employees who ignore the compliance
programme or managers who do not report an employee for
doing so should know that they will be held responsible and
punished.

It is the responsibility of each and every employee to help the
business to comply with the law and to help weed out bad
practices. As already mentioned, it is advisable to treat reports

of transgressions in confidence where possible and
consideration should be given to protection, in some form or
another, to whistleblowers.

Training is a critical part of any new policy or programme and
the compliance programme is no exception. Training should be
aimed at fostering a culture of compliance and ethics. For the
programme to work properly in practice, management and staff
need to understand that the aim of the programme is to prevent
breaches of competition law. They should know what acceptable
behaviour is and should be able to identify prohibited conduct.
They should also be aware of the consequences of not
complying with the programme.

Ongoing staff compliance training should be part of an effective
programme. Training should go beyond merely reciting the
rules; instead it should involve explaining and applying the rules
in a meaningful way to the situation in which the employees
find themselves. Effective training is sometimes best delivered
by experts. Depending on the size and nature of the business,
this may be the compliance officer or a legal professional, or
an external consultant. Engaging an external consultant might
be a good idea during the initial stages of adopting a
compliance programme, in order to design a proper, fit for
purpose, training course and to compile a training manual for
future use. A number of law firms have specialist competition
law departments and some auditing firms or chartered
accountants may offer risk and compliance services.