EU seeks to attract more cartel whistleblowers

The European Union on Friday proposed new measures aimed at attracting whistleblowers within trade cartels, and to streamline the national and bloc-wide systems used to break them up.

Under the new system, which the European Commission hopes will be in place by the end of the year, companies offering sufficient information to bring about dawn raids and a legal investigation will obtain full immunity from prosecution.

The scheme, in the form of proposed amendments to the existing 'leniency programme', will set up a kind of hurdle race for potential whistleblowers.

The first company to provide the key "threshold" information will get the gold medal of full immunity, with those providing a lesser help merely receiving lower fines when a cartel court case is held.

Such leniency has been "a very effective tool" since the first EU system was introduced ten years ago, said EU competition spokesman Jonathan Todd.

"It is difficult for the Commission to be sure of the presence of these cartels unless there is a whistleblower," he added.

While the EU is seeking to refine its rules on treating the whistleblowers, national representatives of the 25 EU members were also meeting in Brussels on Friday to agree a model national programme as close as possible to the Commission's programme.

Since the current EU whistleblower leniency rules were introduced in 2002 until the end of last year, the Commission has granted 51 conditional immunities.

So far the information received has led to five formal cartel cases, which have led to a total of more than one billion dollars in fines.

In its latest successful cartel case, the European Commission earlier this month fined 14 firms a total of 266.7 million euros (338.3 million dollars) for operating a cartel in the Dutch road bitumen market, with energy giant Shell singled out for its leading role.

Interested parties have until October 27 to comment on the proposals before they are adopted by the Commission.