Competition law and its enforcement have become necessary tools in the face of trade liberalisation.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of cross-border cartels. The global South is steadily
becoming aware of this. With the advent of globalisation and trade liberalisation, individual economies
have become intrinsically linked. Anti-competitive conduct in one territory may have an impact in
another territory. Therefore, an effective regional competition law framework complements trade
liberalisation, especially in light of the principal objective of the South-South regional economic
communities: the deepening of regional integration, in order to realise economic development and
alleviate poverty.
Cartel practices, such as, market allocation cartels, are in direct contradiction to this primary objective.
This is when enforcement collaborations in South-South regional economic communities becomes
crucial. The regional legal instruments of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the
East African Community, the Southern African Customs Union and the Southern African Development
Community make provision for enforcement collaborations among Member States. To facilitate
collaboration, regional competition authorities have been created to investigate, among other things,
cross-border cartels. Within these economic communities, there is a strong case for enforcement
collaborations, as evidence shows that the majority of the firms engaging in cartels are the so-called
Regional Multinational Corporations. They operate throughout the territories of Member States.
Additionally, the international nature of cartels, such as, private international cartels and export
cartels, provide an opportunity for South-South co-operation to be utilised. However, this co-operation
has not been utilised to the fullest extent, especially with reference to cross-border cartel activities.
This has been attributed to various factors, such as, institutional incapacities, resource austerity, the
absence of common procedural rules, the lack of adequate investigatory tools, and political ineptitude.
As a solution, this current study makes specific recommendations that are directed at enhancing the
effectiveness of South-South collaborations pertaining to cross-border cartel activities.

Competition law and cartel enforcement regimes in the global south: examining the effectiveness of co-operation in south-south regional trade agreements.

Edited by Simon J. Evenett and Frédéric Jenny Having fluctuated in a relatively narrow band for almost 20 years, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) real food prices spiked in 2008 and in 2010-11. Moreover, in its latest report on food insecruity, the FAO estimated that just under 240 million persons were undernourished in Africa in 2008; the comparable number for Asia was even higher – in excess of 560 million persons. In addition, small farmers have been found to be particularly vulnerable to volatile food prices. The contributors to this volume identify and assess the importance of the factors responsible for the recent increases in the levels and volatility of commodity prices. While many have stressed the consequences of export restrictions on such prices, the approach taken here is broader and includes four chapters on the impact of the impact of financial speculation and anti-competitive practices in commodity markets. Trade, Competition, and the Pricing of Commodities

Trade, Competition, and the Pricing of Commodities

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Criminalizing Business Cartels in Europe - A Comparative Perspective

The global war on cartels has had much success in introducing tough sanctions for cartel conduct, such as price fixing and market sharing. The policy rhetoric justifying criminalization assumes that compliance can be induced through deterrence. This, in turn, assumes that business people know about the law, believe that they are likely to be caught and face enforcement action and jail if they break the law, and calculate that they should comply. This paper problematizes these policy assumptions using evidence from a survey of a random sample of Australian business people and in-depth interviews with 25 cartelists. This paper argues that business people's knowledge about the law is less important than their relationship with (or distance from) the law. Corporate elites see themselves as intimate with the law and, therefore, able to strategically "play" the law; while small business people and managers lower down the corporate hierarchy see themselves as "innocent" of any knowledge of the law. The impact of a policy of increased sanctions for misconduct cannot be understood solely in terms of marginal difference in aggregate levels of deterrence. It must also be understood in terms of how it interacts with people's experience of the law to create and maintain or contest and destabilize social segmentation and inequality. © 2012 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

The war on cartels and the social meaning of deterrence

The global war on cartels has had much success in introducing tough sanctions for cartel conduct, such as price fixing and market sharing. The policy rhetoric justifying criminalization assumes that compliance can be induced through deterrence. This in turn assumes that business people know about the law, believe that they are likely to be caught and face enforcement action and jail if they break the law, and calculate that they should comply. This paper problematizes these policy assumptions using evidence from a survey of a random sample of Australian business people and in-depth interviews with 25 cartelists. This paper argues that business people’s knowledge about the law is less important than their relationship with (or distance from) the law. Corporate elites see themselves as intimate with the law and therefore able to strategically ‘play’ the law; while small business people and managers lower down the corporate hierarchy see themselves as ‘innocent’ of any knowledge of the law. The impact of a policy of increased sanctions for misconduct cannot be understood solely in terms of marginal difference in aggregate levels of deterrence. It must also be understood in terms of how it interacts with people’s experience of the law to create and maintain or contest and destabilise social segmentation and inequality.

Torello H. Calvani

Papers

Cartel Sanctions and Deterrence