EU Law and Practice Contributed by: Andrzej Kmiecik, Richard Burton and Catherine Gordley, Van Bael & Bellis
Plea Bargaining/Settlement ). At EU level, there are no other collateral effects of a Commission decision finding an infringement. 5.4 Sanctions and Penalties in Criminal Proceedings EU law does not provide for criminal sanctions in respect of infringements of EU competition law. 5.5 History of Criminal Sanctions EU law does not provide for criminal sanctions in respect of infringements of EU competition law. 5.6 Relevance of Effective Compliance Programmes The adoption of an antitrust compliance pro - gramme is not considered a mitigating factor by the European Commission when setting fines for a cartel infringement. 5.7 Mandatory Consumer Redress The European Commission does not have the power to order compensation to be paid by companies to direct or indirect purchasers sub - Undertakings to which the European Com - mission has addressed a cartel decision may appeal against that decision before the EU Gen - eral Court. The General Court is empowered to review the Commission’s findings of fact and law. Typically, the General Court will only inter - vene in relation to the Commission’s findings of fact where it can be shown that the Commission has made a manifest error of assessment of the evidence before it. A further appeal to the CJEU is possible, but on points of law only. The EU courts have unlimited jurisdiction on fines, which means they may annul, reduce or increase the sanctions imposed. ject to harm caused by a cartel. 5.8 Judicial Review or Appeal
a cartel and accepting their liability for this con - duct. Through settlement discussions, the Com - mission reaches “common understanding” with the settling parties on the relevant facts, as well as on the scope of the Commission’s objections in the case. The settlement procedure allows the Commis - sion to achieve procedural efficiencies by speed - ing up the adoption of a cartel decision through a shorter administrative process. The settlement procedure also reduces the number of grounds for appeal against Commission decisions. In return for agreeing to settle, undertakings receive a 10% reduction in the fine, while ben - efiting from the reduced costs that the simpli - fied settlement procedure entails, as opposed to the higher costs associated with regular cartel proceedings. They are also given an opportunity to know in advance and even discuss the Com - mission’s potential findings concerning their par - ticipation in the infringement and the level of the fines that the Commission intends to set. The Commission enjoys broad discretion regard - ing whether to pursue settlements, and can decide to discontinue the process if it considers that it is unlikely to lead to procedural efficien - cies. 5.3 Effect of Liability Being Established Once the European Commission adopts a deci - sion finding that a company has infringed Article 101 of the TFEU through cartel conduct, follow- on damages claimants can rely on this as proof of the company’s illegal conduct before EU member states’ national courts (and this cannot be challenged by the defendant company before those courts). This is the case whether the Com - mission adopts its decision under the regular procedure or the settlement procedure (see 5.2
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