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23 Int'l Bus. Law 328 (1995)
Competition: Fair or Foul? Organising EC Competition Law Compliance

handle is hein.journals/ibl23 and id is 330 raw text is: I~ ~ ~ B 0 9 Competition: Fair or Foul? Organising EC Competition Law Compliance Stanbrook and Hooper Wiley Chancery/KMPG. £85/US$145.50 An interesting do-it-yourself EC competition law compliance package is on offer from John Ratcliff and Catriona Hatton of the Brussels Law Offices of Stanbrook and Hooper. In the past the European Commission has reduced the amounts of the fines it would otherwise have imposed on errant companies who had introduced and regularly tried to enforce compliance policies. Although the implementation of a compliance policy will not necessarily enable a company to avoid liability and fines under Articles 85(1) and 86 of the EC Treaty, no company can any longer afford to be without one. The absence of a compliance policy may be regarded as an indication of a 'don't care' attitude and the Commission may be induced to be more prejudiced against a compliance-less company than it would otherwise have been. Consequently all companies should have a 'tailor-made' compliance policy which suits the requirements of their particular business. The Stanbrook and Hooper package provides admirable incentive to induce senior management to sit up and appreciate that the need for a compliance policy is now a fact of life. The package includes an 18 minute video, designed to jolt complacent executives into accepting that virtually all companies do, or often come close to, infringing the EC competition rules and that whether their behaviour does or does not constitute a violation may be based on good (or bad) luck, rather than on informed decisions. The video draws attention to prohibited kinds of behaviour or agreements and to the consequences of breaching the competition rules. The video should be successful in convincing management that infringements can result in a Commission investigation (possibly including one of its infamous 'dawn raids') which eat up huge amounts of management time, incur heavy costs (lawyers' and economists' fees), can lead to heavy fines and bring bad publicity. The video certainly manages to attract its viewers' attention. Inevitably, the subject matter is somewhat dry (not to say sobering) but the principal players - a smug uninformed managing director, a concerned informed managing director and a sinister visitor - are portrayed by well known and convincing actors who manage, with impressive dramatic expertise, to convey the necessary 'serious message' with a nice underlying wry humour. It is very watchable. Two booklets accompany the video. The first is called Speaker's Notes. It is designed to enable the presenter to press the pause button at relevant moments and explain the significance of what has just been screened or to present a commentary before or after the viewing. The Notes are certainly helpful, but they cause me to wonder exactly whom the package is aimed at. If sales are aimed at management (as the sales leaflet indicates), then I doubt if an executive could comprehend the subtleties of the legislation sufficiently to satisfactorily answer questions about issues presented on the video. The Notes will only help him or her make relatively simple comments on these. However, a- presenter's knowledge will be enhanced if he has first studied and absorbed the information provided in the second booklet. This is entitled Organising EC Competition Law Compliance and is essentially a mini- textbook on the EC competition rules. My own view is that any such presentation really needs to be undertaken by a competition law specialist, because probably only a specialist will know enough to make a complicated subject appear simple. Insofar as the package is intended for lawyers, then it is a useful tool indeed, so neatly devised that the authors must anticipate a good deal of plagiarism. Additional copies of the second booklet are available for purchase (at £7.99), so that all viewers of the video can be given a copy to take away with them, although Stanbrook and Hooper's competitors will surely prefer to distribute an equivalent version with their own name on the cover. If, however, a company does fully rely on the package to devise its own presentation, it will be well pleased to be able to distribute Stanbrook and Hooper's excellent booklet. The booklet is some 40 pages long and clearly summarises the main EC competition rules, describing their applicability to many kinds of agreements and, more particularly, to certain kinds of commonly used restrictive provisions and questionable pricing and sales practices. It also describes the consequences of failure to comply with the competition rules, procedures relating to Commission investigations, the EC Merger Control Regulation and the Treaty's state aid provisions. A final word - it is not sufficient to establish a compliance programme by showing the video, giving a talk, distributing the booklet and then leaving it at that with a warning not to break the law. Each company should then formulate its own tailor-made compliance programme by circulating a manual which focuses on the particular needs and practices of that company and establishing periodic follow-up sessions designed to ensure that the policy remains observed. A compliance policy can be counterproductive if, after its initial implementation, no serious efforts are made to enforce the policy on a regular basis. The booklet entitled Speaker's Notes briefly refers to certain companies that actively monitor their policies, but this aspect of compliance cannot be over- stressed. Frances Graupner Baker & McKenzie, London Guide to Product Liability in Europe William C Hoffinaun and Susanne Hill- Arning Kluwer 1994. £65 On 25 July 1985 the 'Council Directive on the Approximation of the Laws, Regulations and International Business Lawyer July/August 1995 328

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