This document analyzes data on cartel enforcement and dominance investigations from competition authorities around the world in 2015. It finds that the US Department of Justice issued the largest total cartel fines, driven largely by a foreign exchange rate collusion case. The European Commission had a relatively slow year for cartel fines. Many authorities conducted few or no dawn raids or issued small cartel fines. Leading authorities are increasingly investigating potential anticompetitive conduct by technology companies in relation to issues like data collection and use.

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RATING ENFORCEMENT 2016
ANALYSIS: PART 3
Thursday, 7 July 2016 (2 weeks ago)
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Rating Enforcement: Analysis Part 3
Table 22: Number of leniency applications
Authority
No. of leniency
applications
Germany 76
Brazil 69
Japan 61
Canada 51
Russia 46
DG Comp 32
UK 24
Australia 19
Mexico 18
Austria 12
Singapore 11
Czech Republic 10
Latvia 9
Belgium 8
Colombia 8
France 8
Italy 8

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Romania 6
Finland 5
Sweden 5
New Zealand 4
India 3
Norway 3
Portugal 3
Chile 2
Poland 2
Turkey 1
Israel 0
Lithuania 0
Pakistan 0
(Click for larger image)
Table 23: Cartel fines
Authority Cartel fines (€ million)

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US (DOJ) 3,200
France 881.3
Spain 506
Korea 473.9
DG Comp 364.5
Italy 235
Germany 208
Belgium 173.8
India 134
Switzerland 75
Colombia 74.7
Czech Republic 74.6
Chile 55
Brazil 45
Romania 42
Austria 34.5
Russia 21.1
Japan 18
Netherlands 15.2
Mexico 5.2
Sweden 3
New Zealand 2.2
Norway 2.1
Lithuania 2
Canada 1.97
UK 1.3
Pakistan 1.18
Israel 1
Denmark 0.981
Portugal 0.83
Latvia 0.3
Poland 0.28
Australia 0
Finland 0
Ireland 0
Singapore 0
Turkey 0

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With the conclusion of the mammoth Forex investigation, it has been
clear for some time that the DoJ would be the top authority for cartel
fines in 2015. Of the total €2.9 billion fines ordered by the antitrust
division, €2.3 billion came from the forex case alone, as the agency
wound up its international investigation of foreign exchange rate
collusion between the world’s biggest banks. It’s worth pointing out
that if those fines had not been handed down in 2015, the remaining
€700 million in fines would have been a €500 million dip from 2014,
but would still have left the agency in a comfortable second place,
behind France’s €881 million.
DG Comp, easily the DoJ’s peer in cartel enforcement, had a much
slower year, especially compared to its usual high fines. While its
€365 million total is nothing to be sniffed at, and slots the agency in
at number five, it is peanuts compared to the amounts it has been
able to extract over the last decade; indeed, it is the the lowest cartel
fine total since the regulation that established the current European
enforcement regime came into force. Given that the average total
fines per year for 2010 to 2014 inclusive come to around €1.8 billion,
it marks an extremely quiet year. Observers say that this may be
down to the commission’s top brass being kept busy by the huge
transfer pricing state aid investigations and the ambitious e­
commerce inquiry, but whatever the explanation may be, 2015 stands
as a low point for European cartel enforcement.
The bottom of the table is crowded: Australia, Finland, Ireland,
Singapore and Turkey all reported no cartel fines in 2015. Meanwhile,
Denmark, Portugal, Latvia and Poland all issued less than €1 million
in total fines. Portugal is perhaps the most disappointing of that list:
despite the agency publicly stating it plans to reinvigorate its cartel
enforcement, which traditionally lagged behind its track record in
mergers, the effect of that stance was nowhere to be seen in terms of

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closed cartel investigations.
The number of dawn raids (see table 24) conducted by enforcement
agencies changed considerably in 2015. Turkey’s Competition
Authority remains the world leader, with 96 dawn raids conducted –
that’s 20 more than in 2014. Given that GCR asks agencies not to refer
to the number of searched premises, but to the number of cases in
which dawn raids were conducted, it is an impressively high number.
Korea’s Fair Trade Commission and Germany’s Federal Cartel Office
remain reliably busy; they respectively conducted 49 and 14 raids
last year, taking the fourth and fifth places in the table. Colombia, a
new entrant to Rating Enforcement this year, conducted 57 raids, placing it in
second on our list.
Table 24: Number of dawn raids
Authority No. of dawn raids
Turkey 96
Colombia 57
Korea 49
Germany 14
Austria 12
Russia 12
Italy 11
Spain 10
Greece 8
Latvia 8
Romania 8
Czech Republic 7
Denmark 7
Mexico 7
France 6
Lithuania 6
Poland 6
Finland 5
Switzerland 5
Canada 4

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Canada 4
DG Comp 4
Israel 4
Netherlands 4
Australia 3
UK 3
Belgium 2
Brazil 2
Ireland 2
Portugal 2
Singapore 2
Chile 1
India 1
Norway 1
Pakistan 1
New Zealand 0
Sweden 0
Table 25: Average duration of a cartel investigation
Authority
Average length of cartel
investigation (months)
Chile 589
Belgium 105
Denmark 62
Romania 56
Brazil 49.2
DG Comp 48
Greece 42
Germany 36
India 36
UK 34
Canada 29
Korea 25
Australia 24
Colombia 24
Ireland 24
Switzerland 23.5
Mexico 23
Spain 22

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Spain 22
Czech Republic 19
Lithuania 19
Finland 18
France 18
Italy 18
Portugal 18
Sweden 17
Japan 15
Singapore 14
Israel 12
Netherlands 12
Russia 12
Latvia 11
Poland 10
Turkey 8
New Zealand 5.5
Pakistan 4
Table 26: Total number of dominance investigations opened
Authority
No. of abuse
investigations opened
Russia 3,059
DG Comp 35
Denmark 31
Brazil 30
France 30
US (FTC) 25
Korea 24
India 23
Poland 23
Austria 22
Chile 18
Germany 14
Greece 10
Turkey 10
Australia 9
Sweden 9
Canada 7

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Canada 7
Finland 7
Mexico 6
Pakistan 6
Spain 4
Italy 3
Romania 3
Belgium 2
Colombia 2
New Zealand 2
Portugal 2
Ireland 1
Israel 1
Netherlands 1
UK 1
Czech Republic 0
Latvia 0
Lithuania 0
Singapore 0
Switzerland 0
Norway 0
As ever, technology continues to shift power in the global
marketplace, leaving antitrust enforcers scrambling to catch up to
companies that have mastered new technologies and, in doing so,
have become dominant in their respective industries. Antitrust case
law books are riddled with examples of such enforcement; think of
the transatlantic investigations of Microsoft at the turn of the 20th
century. At the moment, the countries at the top of this year’s
dominance tables are building new case law.
Russia is something of an exception here; because of the country’s
antitrust law and the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s structure, a host
of minor matters are considered dominance investigations. This
bloats the agency’s statistics beyond the work it does on major
cases, including its case against Google. Below Russia, the top of

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our table is occupied by agencies on the cutting edge of single­firm
conduct enforcement. The European Commission, Brazil, Korea,
France and the US Federal Trade Commission all conduct extensive
and sophisticated investigations of high­tech industries, including
those in which data collection may allow companies to build and
exploit power over rivals and consumers.
The European Commission, which opened 35 new dominance
probes in 2015 after opening another 40 the year before, brought
headline­grabbing actions against Qualcomm and Google for their
alleged anticompetitive conduct in the tech industry last year, while its
inquiry into the digital single market continues. Korea has been
conducting its own Qualcomm investigation, as well as examining
Google’s use of its Android mobile operating system. And all of the
top agencies, particularly the FTC, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office
and France’s Competition Authority, have begun looking into “big
data” as a possible competition concern.
Becket McGrath, a partner at Cooley in London, says Germany has
long been on the cutting edge of single­firm conduct enforcement,
and the Federal Cartel Office continues to do innovative work today.
In 2016, it opened an investigation of Facebook over the use of its
enormous cache of user data, and, along with the French authority,
started a market­wide examination of big data and competition.
“Historically, they’ve always been more willing to intervene in
unilateral conduct, and I think we are seeing that being consciously
expanded into different areas,” McGrath says.
Indeed, older, more established enforcers seem intent on bringing
innovative dominance cases against major multinational companies,
particularly in the tech sector, RCAA partner Marc Reysen says. But
younger agencies often turn to dominance cases as a way to

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establish their presence in an economy and score secure, and what
the enforcer may see as easy, victories against powerful local
companies. “This can really happen anywhere – where local
competition authorities are coming under pressure to “do something”
against large companies by the general populace,” Reysen says. “In
this respect, any very successful company – whether it is soft drink
manufacturer or operator of a chain of cinemas – may be a target of
enforcement behaviour.”
These kinds of cases may be deceptively easy to bring, Reysen
says, but if the targeted company does in fact have a significant
share of a supply market, they may be keen to settle their exposure
quickly. They may not be headline­grabbingcases against major
companies, but if a client is the target of such a probe, they’ll likely be
just as unhappy, he says.
Table 27: Total number of dominance investigations closed
Authority
No. of abuse
investigations closed
Russia 2,542
Brazil 73
DG Comp 52
Greece 47
India 44
Poland 29
Denmark 26
Chile 25
Germany 20
France 16
Finland 10
Canada 8
Korea 8
Sweden 7
Turkey 6
Australia 5

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Colombia 5
Spain 5
Belgium 3
Italy 3
Mexico 3
Pakistan 3
Portugal 3
Singapore 3
Czech Republic 2
Romania 2
Switzerland 1.5
Ireland 1
Israel 1
Japan 1
Latvia 1
Lithuania 1
UK 1
Netherlands 0
New Zealand 0
Norway 0
US (FTC) 0
Table 28: Average duration of dominance investigations
Authority
Average duration of
abuse investigation
(months)
Sweden 383
Portugal 57
Brazil 49
Romania 49
Belgium 38
DG Comp 31
Czech Republic 30
Switzerland 25
UK 25
Colombia 24
Latvia 24
Singapore 22
Spain 22

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Spain 22
India 18
Finland 18
France 18
Israel 18
Canada 17
Italy 16
Lithuania 16
Korea 15
Mexico 15
Australia 12
Germany 12
Poland 11
Chile 10
Denmark 9
Turkey 8
Greece 4.5
Pakistan 4
Table 29: Longest­running dominance investigation
Authority
Longest running
invesigation (months)
Brazil 132
Poland 132
US (FTC) 114
Canada 102
DG Comp 97
France 96
Belgium 72
Greece 72
UK 66
Finland 60
Czech Republic 57
Chile 54
Portugal 50
Colombia 48
Ireland 48
Norway 48
Romania 40

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Romania 40
Sweden 36
Switzerland 36
Denmark 31
Australia 27
Korea 27
Latvia 24
Mexico 23
Lithuania 22.5
Spain 22
Netherlands 19
Italy 17
Turkey 15
Israel 13
New Zealand 7
Pakistan 5
Table 30: Dominance investigations ended with commitments
Authority
No. of investigations
closed w/ commitments
Russia 1,913
Brazil 16
Poland 11
India 7
France 6
Chile 4
Australia 3
Italy 2
Singapore 2
Spain 2
US (FTC) 2
Canada 1
DG Comp 1
Finland 1
Greece 1
Latvia 1
Mexico 1
Romania 1
Sweden 1

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Sweden 1
Table 31: Percentage of budget spent on advocacy
Authority
Per cent of budget
dedicated to advocacy
Singapore 36
Mexico 21
Finland 18
Israel 15
Switzerland 10
Denmark 10
Pakistan 10
New Zealand 8
Spain 5
Greece 5
Poland 5
Belgium 4
UK 3
Australia 2
Canada 2
US (FTC) 2
Korea 2
Turkey 2
Lithuania 2
Austria 1
Table 32: Number of appearances before lawmakers
Authority
Appearances before
lawmakers
France 23
Chile 20
Japan 17
Germany 15
DG Comp 12
Australia 11
Czech Republic 11
Russia 10
Italy 9

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Italy 9
Lithuania 8
Finland 8
Poland 5
Brazil 5
Canada 5
Mexico 4
Portugal 4
US (FTC) 4
India 3
Netherlands 3
Pakistan 3
Austria 2
Spain 2
Colombia 1
Ireland 1
US (DOJ) 1