Modern antitrust engenders a possible conflict between public and private enforcement due to the central role of Leniency Programs. Damage actions may reduce the attractiveness of Leniency Programs for cartel participants if their cooperation with the competition authority increases the chance that the cartel’s victims will bring a successful suit. A long legal debate culminated in a EU directive, adopted in November 2014, which seeks a balance between public and private enforcement. It protects the effectiveness of a Leniency Program by preventing the use of leniency statements in subsequent actions for damages and by limiting the liability of the immunity recipient to its direct and indirect purchasers. Our analysis shows such compromise is not required: limiting the cartel victims’ ability to recover their loss is not necessary to preserve the effectiveness of a Leniency Program and may be counter-productive. We show that damage actions will actually improve its effectiveness, through a legal regime in which the civil liability of the immunity recipient is minimized (as in Hungary) and full access to all evidence collected by the competition authority, including leniency statements, is granted to claimants (as in the US).
Archives
Statistical significance and the standard of proof in antitrust damage quantification
Econometric techniques can play an important role in damage quantification cases regarding breaches of antitrust law. In this short note, starting from a prima facie simple convention on how to interpret the estimated regression coefficients, we will discuss how a deep understanding of both the specific legal framework and the relevant technical aspects is important in order to evaluate econometric evidence correctly in the context of civil court litigation for antitrust damage quantification.
The Enforcement of Imperfect Rules
This paper examines the optimal sanction for rules that are imperfect in that they are either overinclusive, as they prohibit an action that in some circumstances is beneficial, or underinclusive as they allow agents to undertake alternative conducts that are harmful, or both. The paper clarifies why this notion of imperfection divers from the notion of over- and underdeterrence and from that of legal errors. Finally it shows that when rules are imperfect the optimal sanction is lower than the optimal sanction for a perfect rule, both if the rule is overinclusive and if it is underinclusive.
A Search Model Where Consumers Choose Quantity Based on Expected Price
I describe a price game in which consumers face search costs and base their quantity decision on the expected price. Because of search costs, the choice of the firm they will buy from is described by a random process. I show that the expected equilibrium price is above the monopoly price. This result does not change if demand comes from a small share of perfectly informed consumers with zero search costs.
Published in The Journal of Industrial Economics, December 2003, Vol. LI, n. 4, pp. 427-32.