Complying with Competition Law Page 22

Complying with Competition Law

Finally, here is a quick checklist of many of the key items to
help you with your compliance programme. This checklist is in-
tended as an aid and is not exhaustive. Legal advice is always
the best and safest route to follow for total certainty.

General

Ensure that the identity of the compliance officer is known

to all staff

Ensure that the compliance officer has an `open door policy'

Design the compliance programme to suit your business

Ensure that all staff have access to the compliance

programme

Give training to all staff on the compliance programme

Have all members of management and staff sign

declarations on a regular basis, stating that they have read
and fully understand the competition law compliance
programme and have been adequately trained

Training and monitoring of compliance should be ongoing

and the compliance programme regularly reviewed

Report any suspected anti-competitive behaviour

immediately

Seek legal advice if there is any uncertainty

Trade associations or `associations of undertakings' are
specifically mentioned in both the Irish Competition Act 2002
and in European Union competition legislation, the Treaty on
the Functioning of the European Union.

The word `undertaking' is used in both the Irish and European
Union competition legislation to describe a business, whether it
is an individual person, a body corporate or an unincorporated
body of persons engaged for (economic) gain in the production,
supply and distribution of goods or the provision of a service.

For the purposes of this discussion on compliance, we are
going to refer to associations of undertakings broadly as trade
associations and this will include trade associations themselves,
chambers of commerce, professional associations and industry
federations.

As the name suggests, a trade association is normally made up
of businesses involved in a particular sector, industry or
profession. The purpose of a trade association is usually to
represent the views of its members and to promote its members
and their collective business interests, for example in lobbying
government bodies for changes to laws and regulations.

Belonging to a trade association also brings the benefit of
providing businesses in the same or similar line of business, a
forum to discuss common problems and legitimate issues and
to learn from one another's experience.

Compliance checklist

Competition law

compliance for trade

associations