In a paper published in the Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, four Analysis Group authors assessed the cartel enforcement activity of the five Commissioners for Competition who led the European Union’s Directorate-General for Competition (DG-Comp) from 1994 to 2019. Drawing on a database compiled by Analysis Group of 722 fines imposed by DG-Comp on 110 different cartels, CEO Pierre Y. Cremieux, Managing Principal Antoine Chapsal, Principal Emmanuel Frot, and Manager Jon Freimark developed a multidimensional methodology for comparing enforcement activity across the five Commissioners’ terms.
The authors first charted fines for each year by size and industry, identifying individual cartels and highlighting the largest fines imposed by the five commissioners. This allowed them to discuss several overarching trends in enforcement over the 26-year period. They then compared activity in each commissioner’s term on six metrics: total fine amount, total number of fines, average fine, median fine, number of cartels fined, and ratio of zero-amount fines to the number of cartels fined.
This analysis indicated a recent shift in later terms towards larger fines imposed on fewer but larger companies, as well as robust use of an enhanced leniency program. The authors concluded that, at a time when other types of anticompetitive behavior – particularly unilateral behavior in the rapidly growing digital economy – are drawing increased regulatory attention and enforcement resources, cartel enforcement remains an important tool for European regulators.
Associated People
Antoine Chapsal
Dr. Chapsal is an economist who specializes in empirical and theoretical industrial organization. He has provided economic expertise in a large number of high-profile cases involving mergers, cartels, information exchanges, abuses of dominant positions, regulation, intellectual property matters, and damages quantifications. Recent examples include the Lafarge/Holcim and Fnac/Darty mergers, as well as airfreight, cathode ray tube, and elevator cartel cases. Dr. Chapsal has also assisted various firms in designing optimized pricing strategies and dealing with policy issues. His reports have been presented to the competition authorities of France, Germany, Austria, and South Africa; the European Commission; the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf; and the Court of Appeals, Conseil d’Etat, Conseil constitutionnel, and Tribunal of Commerce of Paris.
Prior to joining Analysis Group, Dr. Chapsal founded MAPP, a Paris- and Brussels-based economic consultancy, which was acquired by KPMG in 2018. Previously, he worked in a US competition economics consultancy. Dr. Chapsal regularly publishes articles on competition economics, on subjects ranging from the econometric analysis of cartels to geographic market delineation and exclusionary strategies. He is an affiliated professor at the Sciences Po Department of Economics and a member of the CESifo academic research network.
Emmanuel Frot
Dr. Frot is an economist with specialized expertise in applying quantitative analyses to competition, litigation, regulatory, and business intelligence issues. He advises firms in a wide range of industries, providing economic and econometric expertise on matters related to mergers, market concentrations, cartel investigations, and damages.
Over the years, he has performed numerous economic and econometric analyses in Phase I and Phase II mergers before the French Competition Authority and the European Commission, including Veolia Transport/Transdev, Jardiland/InVivo, Castel/Patriarche, Fnac/Nature & Découvertes, d’aucy/Triskalia, Lactalis/Nuova Castelli, Lactalis/Leerdammer, CMA CGM / Bolloré Logistics, Canal+/OCS, and Suez/Veolia. He has led case teams and performed economic analyses in several prominent horizontal and vertical cartel cases, as well as estimated damages in antitrust litigation and intellectual property matters. He has also assisted companies in modeling and implementing changes to pricing behavior.
His reports have been presented to the European Commission, the French Competition Authority, the Court of Appeals, the Conseil d’État (France’s highest administrative court), the Tribunal of Commerce of Paris, and regulators in the telecommunications, energy, transportation, and gambling sectors. Dr. Frot has published a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals and regularly speaks at international competition law and policy conferences.