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Wouter Wils Academic Steering Committee European Commission (Brussels)

Prof. Dr. Wouter Wils is a Hearing Officer for competition proceedings at the European Commission and Visiting Professor at King’s College London. He was educated both as an economist and as a lawyer at Louvain, Utrecht and Harvard. As a Member of the Legal Service of the European Commission from 1994 to 2010, he represented the European Commission in more than 300 cases before the EU and EFTA Courts.

2021 Compliance

Antitrust Compliance Programmes & Optimal Antitrust Enforcement

Mr Wils’ initiative consists of an article entitled Antitrust Compliance Programmes & Optimal Antitrust Enforcement. " Should companies that have antitrust compliance programmes be granted a reduction in the amount of fines or even immunity from fines when they are found to have committed antitrust infringements? Should the absence of a compliance programme constitute an aggravating factor leading to higher fines for antitrust infringements? Should the adoption of a compliance programme be imposed as part of infringement decisions or settlements? These are the questions which this paper examines, on the basis of an analysis of the nature of antitrust infringements, the rationale of company liability for antitrust infringements, and the possible positive and possible negative effects of compliance programmes.