Conditions For Qualifying As A Serial Cartel Offender Clarified

Parent companies may pay more dearly for their subsidiaries' cartel crimes than they may have expected. The European Court of Justice has clarified that a parent company can be considered a serial cartel offender for earlier infringements by its subsidiaries, even without it having been an addressee of the earlier infringement decisions. To prevent cartel infringements of times past from coming back to bite, parent companies should not only implement an effective competition compliance programme at subsidiary-level, but should also keep track of their subsidiaries' earlier cartel infringements.

In December 2007, the European Commission imposed a fine on energy company Eni for its participation in a cartel in the chloroprene rubber sector. The Commission increased Eni's fine based on the aggravating circumstance of recidivism because two of its subsidiaries had already been addressees of previous Commission cartel decisions in 1986 and 1994. According to the General