CRIMINAL CARTEL OFFENCE IN THE UK 10 YEARS AFTER THE AMENDMENT. EFFECTIVE REFORM OR FURTHER IMPEDIMENT TO PROSECUTION?
CRIMINAL CARTEL OFFENCE IN THE UK 10 YEARS AFTER THE AMENDMENT. EFFECTIVE REFORM OR FURTHER IMPEDIMENT TO PROSECUTION?

Summary/Abstract: The article describes the operation in practice of UK regulations that stipulate grounds of criminal liability for the cartel offence for which the court may impose prison sentences and/or fines under the Enterprise Act 2002. Particular attention is paid to assessing the changes to the description of this offence introduced by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, which came into force on 1 April 2014. The first fundamental change to this description was to eliminate the element of “dishonesty” in the description of the cartel offence. That change was due to the difficulties involved in proving the “dishonest” nature of the actions of those alleged to have committed the act. Most of the subsequent proceedings involving cartel conspiracies, even when hard-core cartels were alleged, crashed against these problems. The second fundamental change was the introduction into the cartel offence regulation of three types of circumstances giving grounds for finding that an act does not constitute an offence and three possible “defences” against allegations of the cartel offence. The article assesses to what extent these new regulations are able to ensure in practice an effective fight against cartel offences and to what extent they constitute a further impediment to this task. The article also describes the director’s disqualification measure applied under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.

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