ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the European Union (EU) legislation on cartels. Cartel regulations in the EU are based on the principle that cartels are prohibited unless certain specific and stringent conditions have been met. Price-fixing and market-sharing agreements between competing companies are well known examples of behaviour that come under the ban on cartels. Joining a market-sharing cartel, for instance, may seem attractive to companies but is undesirable from the perspective of consumers. For this reason it is prohibited by the EU. Discouraging cartels is in line with the principle that the EU member states have chosen a free-market system. The requirement of appreciability implies that a cartel, if it is to come under the ban on cartels, does in fact restrict competition. The nature of the cartel also plays an important part in answering the question whether the restriction of competition is in fact appreciable.
