Abstract
Over the last dozen years or so there has been a burgeoning of criminal law for purposes of dealing with business cartels in a number of jurisdictions (for instance, the new ‘cartel offence’ introduced under the Enterprise Act 2002 in the UK). The discussion here provides first of all some account of this process of criminalisation, mapping it in terms of jurisdictions and the legal character of this category of cartel offending. It then seeks to explain and account for the phenomenon and more particularly to determine the extent to which it may be seen either as an element of more forceful prosecution strategy, or alternatively as a sea-change in moral perception and evaluation. Put another way, is this a development led by legal policy, or a genuine shift in outlook, which has produced a new legal policy? It will be argued finally that, in a more pragmatic perspective, the success of the criminalisation project in any case depends on the emergence of a genuine sense of ‘hard core’ delinquency, without which effective regulation by means of criminal law is unlikely to be achieved. In this respect, a manufactured sense of moral censure, fostered by prosecutors to facilitate leniency programmes, may (outside the US) eventually prove to be a point of vulnerability in such strategies.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andrews, P. (2002). Modernisation – Irish Style. European Competition Law Review 23, 469
Braithwaite J., (1984). Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Connor J.M. (2001). Global Price Fixing: Our Customers are the Enemy. The Hague: Kluwer
Gerber D.J., (2001). Law and Competition in Twentieth Century Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Evenett, S.J., Leventstein, M.C., and Suslow, V.Y. (2002). International Cartel Enforcement: Lessons from the 1990s. OECD Global Forum on Competition, CCNM/GF/COMP/WD (2002)25
Hammond, S.D. (2001a). From Hollywood to Hong Kong – Criminal Antitrust Enforcement is Coming to a City Near You. Department of Justice, paper presented in Chicago. www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/speeches
Hammond, S.D. (2001b). When calculating the costs and benefits of applying for corporate amnesty, how do you put a price tag on an individual’s freedom? Department of Justice paper. 8 March 2001. www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/speeches/7647
Hammond, S.A. and Penrose, R. (2001). Proposed Criminalisation of Cartels in the UK Report prepared for the Office of Fair Trading
Harding C., (2002). Business Cartels as a Criminal Activity: Reconciling North American and European Models of Regulation. Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 9: 393–419
Harding C., (2004). Forging the European Cartel Offence: the Supranational Regulation of Business Conspiracy. European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice 12: 275–300
Harding, C. and Joshua, J. (2002). Breaking up the hard core: Prospects for the Proposed cartel offence. Criminal Law Review 933–944
Harding C., Joshua J., (2003). Regulating Cartels in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Liefmann, R. (1927). Report on International Cartels, in Weltwirtschaftsliches Archiv (English translation)
Peritz R.J.R.. (1996). Competition Policy in America: History, Rhetoric, Law. New York: Oxford University Press
Punch M., (1996). Dirty Business: Explaining Corporate Misconduct. London: Sage
Sanekata K., Wilks S, (1996). The Fair Trade Commission and the Enforcement of Competition Policy in Japan. In: Doern G.B., Wilks S., (eds). Comparative Competition Policy: National Institutions in a Global Market. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Slapper G., Tombs S., (1999). Corporate Crime. Harlow: Longman
Spratling, G.R. (1997). Criminal Antitrust Enforcement against International Cartels. www.usdoj.gov/atrpublic/speeeches/1056
Sullivan T.E., (ed.) (1991). The Political Economy of the Sherman Act: The First One Hundred Years. New York: Oxford University Press
Whish R., (2003). Competition Law. 5th edition. London: Lexis Nexis
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Harding, C. Business Collusion as a Criminological Phenomenon: Exploring the Global Criminalisation of Business Cartels. Crit Crim 14, 181–205 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-006-9000-6
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-006-9000-6