Horizontal Agreements

Chapter 2 considers the application of the Competition Act 1998 to ‘Horizontal Agreements’, and in particular to cartel behaviour, since that piece of legislation entered into force on 1 March 2000. It is a tour de force of the enforcement practice. The chapter notes that early years of the legislation were somewhat disappointing, with a fairly low level of enforcement, although the OFT did score success with pioneering investigations of so-called ‘hub and spoke’ cartels in the Football Shirts and Toys and Games cases. From about 2006 onwards there were more decisions from the OFT, and some of the cases, such as Construction bid-rigging and Fuel surcharges, were high profile ones. Despite this, criticism of under-performance was voiced, not least by the National Audit Office. It is noted that in due course the OFT was replaced by the CMA, and there has been a noticeable increase in enforcement in recent years. Whish suggests that in a post-Brexit world it can be anticipated that there will be yet more enforcement, including of larger cartels which historically would have been investigated by the European Commission in Brussels.

Anti-Monopoly Law

In 2014, the Japanese Anti-Monopoly Law came from the United States. It was dormant for decades until 1990 when the US–Japan SII Talks were completed. Since then, Anti-Monopoly Law was invigorated. The business system in Japan became much more transparent and fairer in the last several decades. Cartels, including bid-rigging, are now under control. In 2014, the Anti-Monopoly Law was substantially amended and its quasi-judicial power was taken away

Detecting Bid-Rigging in Public Procurement. A Cluster Analysis Approach

This paper analyses the public procurement auctions for snow removal contracts to find out whether bid-rigging occurred. Due to the limited participation in the auction processes, detection of anticompetitive agreements was possible. The econometric analysis used in our study supported the findings of a cartel agreement. Cluster analysis, statistical hypothesis, normality and symmetry and nonparametric tests reveal two types of auctions: competitive and noncompetitive bids. The aim of this paper is to analyze the public procurement auctions with nonparametric statistical methods. Our findings are in line with the literature in the field.