A senior business leader recently gave me high praise—for the compliance business, at least. “You’ve done a great job brainwashing us about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” he said. “Now you have to do the same with EU Competition Law.”
That executive, a European, knew what he was talking about. Working across the Atlantic, he had a front-row seat to watch a parade of massive fines imposed in recent years by the European Commission under the leadership of competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes.
And yet, we’ve lately seen signs of a somewhat more moderate approach to enforcement of European competition law (more ...