Uptick In Fines For Obstruction Of Dawn Raids

Companies being investigated for infringements of the competition rules may face substantial fines for acts obstructing unannounced inspections (dawn raids), such as deleting data or providing incorrect or misleading information, even if no substantive competition law infringement is ultimately found. In recent years, there has been an uptick in fining decisions regarding obstruction of dawn raids from several competition authorities across the EU. For instance, the European Commission fined a company EUR 15.9 million because a single employee had deleted WhatsApp messages during a dawn raid. This underscores the importance of companies preparing for potential dawn raids.