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Schroeder, Dirk; Heinz, Silke --- "Requests for Leniency in the EU: Experience and Legal Puzzles" [2006] ELECD 454; in Cseres, J. Katalin; Schinkel, Pieter Maarten; Vogelaar, O.W. Floris (eds), "Criminalization of Competition Law Enforcement" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Criminalization of Competition Law Enforcement

Editor(s): Cseres, J. Katalin; Schinkel, Pieter Maarten; Vogelaar, O.W. Floris

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845426088

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Requests for Leniency in the EU: Experience and Legal Puzzles

Author(s): Schroeder, Dirk; Heinz, Silke

Number of pages: 15

Extract:

8. Requests for leniency in the EU:
experience and legal puzzles
Dirk Schroeder and Silke Heinz

1 INTRODUCTION

The European Commission's leniency program has been a success.1 By 17
November 2004, the Commission had received 92 leniency applications
under its revised leniency notice of 20022 (hereinafter the `Commission 2002
Leniency Notice').3 These applications led to over 38 conditional immunity
decisions. The large majority, namely 70, of the applications originated
from companies situated within the EU,4 while 17 came from outside the
EU (including non-EU corporations with EU subsidiaries),5 with five
applications not indicating a link to a particular country or indicating a link
to more than one country. In addition, there is a trend towards a growing
number of leniency applications: Commissioner Neelie Kroes reported that,
while DG COMP received 16 applications in 2003, the number of requests
almost doubled to 29 in 2004.6 However, the leniency program could have
been, and could become, an even greater success were leniency regimes
not as diverse as is currently the case, and were the application process for
leniency more efficient throughout Europe.
Leniency is an area in which uniform rules do not exist throughout
the EU. Currently, the Commission and 17 Member States have leniency
programs. Eight Member States do not provide for leniency; these are
Austria, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.7
Moreover, there are differences between the existing programs. This
chapter will highlight such differences, both in law and in ...