The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has further stepped up its fight against cartel activities with a review of its leniency policy, the establishment of a dedicated ACCC cartels detection team and a new campaign to assist government agencies to detect and report cartel behaviour in government contracts.
Addressing the ACCC sponsored Cracking Cartels conference in Sydney today, ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said he regarded fighting insidious and damaging cartel behaviour as a major priority of the ACCC's enforcement program.
"The Commission has currently identified 40 suspected cartels, with 21 under intensive investigation, a further five cases in litigation and others recently concluded", he said.
The ACCC believed its leniency policy had been a very effective incentive for exposing cartels but after just over a year of experience, it could be improved.
As a result the ACCC was issuing a discussion paper canvassing various possible enhancements of the policy. They include recognition of 'markers' – where leniency applicants could give some details of a cartel and establish if leniency were available before revealing the full facts; offering leniency to both corporations and individuals at the same time and allowing paperless or 'oral evidence' only applications.
The specialist cartels team is developing strategic investigation/litigation plans to raise awareness of the leniency policy, to encourage collaboration with ACCC and external counterparts to coordinate and progress ACCC anti-cartel investigations and to identify emerging issues.
"Its emphasis will be on increasing the detection and treatment of cartels and in building the ACCC’s capacity for incisive anti-cartel action", he said.
Mr Samuel said one of the principal ways cartels made their profits was by targeting purchasing contracts – government and private.
"Government purchasing is particularly exposed to cartel formation and continuation because the transparency required in government contracts provides cartels with the information to allocate markets, fix prices and police their members to ensure they stick to the deal. Purchasing or procurement agents should therefore be in the front line of the fight against cartels".
The ACCC believed a campaign to better inform and motivate buyers or procurement agents in both government and the private sector was desirable.
"When you think about it, those in charge of buying or tenders should have reasonable knowledge of industries from which they regularly obtain substantial goods and services, and therefore are in a good position to identify conduct that might indicate the existence of cartels.
"So working with these experts in the field about how to better detect and report cartels should help alert us sooner to cartel conduct".
Over the past five days the ACCC's cartels team has been engaged in a series of workshops and high-level meetings with counterpart agencies. More than 100 officers from 30 countries have shared their expertise to develop protocols for cooperation in detecting, investigating and prosecuting cartels which were exploiting globalised trade across borders.