1 Pro-active and re-active detection tools in cartel cases Lecturer: Mr. Bogdan M. Chiritoiu President of Romanian Competition Council ICN Annual Conference, BOS 2: Non-leniency tools for detecting and investigating cartels - Sydney, April,

2 Agency Cooperation Tool Cooperation and coordination with: Public Prosecutor’s Office Public Procurement authorities Other competition authorities, mainly via ECN

Agency cooperation’s means Set-up in 2010 of a Tenders Directorate; Bid-rigging module; Memo-s of cooperation; Dissemination of OECD Guidelines for fighting against bid rigging. 3

Highlights. Agency Cooperation tool 1 st on-going investigation based on an alleged CIBD breach referred by a local contracting authority; E.g. of bid-rigging cases finalized following agency cooperation:  natural gas connections: fines of 5.5 million Euro;  national road markers: fines of approx. 665,000 Euro. 4

Industry monitoring Use of economic indicators:  fringe competitors, high entry barriers, frequency of interaction, market transparency, stability of market shares;  The Aggregated Index of Competitive Pressure; Electronic interconnection platform created among different agencies:  ease of search and collection of relevant information. 5

Industry monitoring Surveillance of legislative developments:  Change of the rules of the game or  Appearance of new markets E.g. Case of customer market sharing on mandatory private pension funds market: fines of 1.23 million Euro. 6

Industry monitoring Supervision of situations that could lead to concerted practices such as „Hub and spoke conspiracy”:  Screening of actions carried out within the associations; 7

Industry monitoring Intensive activity of monitoring the press and the trade journals of certain associations; Collateral investigations, studies and analyses of the relevant markets; 8

Competition Informants platform Focus of RCC: encouraging the active implication of civil society; Set-up of the platform: this year Ensured anonymity to natural persons providing the information in the system; Aims:  diversifying the ways to collect information from the market;  a more efficient management of the relevant information. 9

10 Thank you for your attention!