Abstract:

Nowadays, the cartel is considered one of the most harmful anticompetitive practices. This anticompetitive practice is characterized by the difficulty of identifying, but especially by the difficulty of demonstrating the existence of such an agreement. That is why, at EU level, competition policy plays an extremely important role. In order to implement better the competition policy European Commission and the national competition authorities of the EU member states cooperate very closely through the European Competition Network. In the present paper we intend to analyze how the cartel cases detected at the European Union level and at the level of Romania, during the period 2004 - 2018 were handled. The main objective of the paper is to highlight a number of issues that emerge from the comparative analysis of the way in which the cartel cases were investigated at EU level, compared to those identified on the territory of Romania by the Competition Council, during the 15 years. The research methodology consists in selecting the decisions issued during 2004 - 2018 by the European Commission for violation of Art. 101 of the TFEU on the one hand, and on the other hand the selection of the decisions issued during the same period by the Romanian Competition Council for violation of Art. 5 of the Competition Law no. 21/1996. As regards the analysis of the cartels identified both, at the European Union level, and at the level of Romania, the following aspects were considered: the date of the decision issued by the European Commission or by the Competition Council in Romania; the number of undertakings involved in the cartel; the date of the opening of the investigation; the modality of opening the investigation; the field of activity in which the cartel operated; the duration of the cartel; and the amount of the fines applied. The results of the study highlighted important aspects of how cartel cases from EU level were handled, compared to those conducted on the territory of Romania. The findings of the study can easily turn into recommendations that we can make to the competition authorities on how to handle future cartel cases.