Concurrences

The Antitrust Compliance Network

The Antitrust Compliance Network started as a simple email network among those around the world who believed in the importance of antitrust/competition law compliance programs, and in the government’s role in promoting such programs by effective policy measures. The group did not believe that mere words made compliance programs effective, and did not believe that mere words on the government’s part would promote such programs. They pushed for government to use its leverage to get companies to enhance their compliance efforts, and this meant that government needed to distinguish companies that did not care and did not try, from those that acted in good faith and had diligent competition law compliance programs.

Testimonials

Joe Murphy
Compliance Strategists (New York)

United States 2 contributions 329 visits

Concurrences is recognizing the importance of compliance programs in the competition law field by staging a series of virtual conferences on the topic and giving awards to leaders in this field.

This is a very valuable contribution to our field. For too long competition law compliance has taken a back seat to other areas, especially anti-corruption. Much of the blame for this lies at the feet of competition law enforcers, who had refused to recognize compliance programs, preferring instead to focus only on collecting fines. In contrast, in other areas of law enforcement, the value of compliance and government’s role in recognizing and promoting it, was readily recognized. Recently this negative approach in competition law has started to change, and we now have an opportunity to see more energy, imagination and resources directed into competition law compliance.

Those who do the difficult work of competition law compliance deserve to be recognized and encouraged. At the same time, we need incentives to move beyond the old approaches of dusty manuals and legal lectures, into steps that make programs work – things like empowering compliance officers, dealing with incentives, evaluating what program steps actually are working.

Congratulations to Concurrences for its leadership in promoting competition law compliance efforts.
Susan Ning
King & Wood Mallesons (Beijing)

China 36 contributions 19453 visits

Antitrust compliance initiative proposed by this award summit is a creative mind rarely found in the traditional legal sector. The ideas to be innovative in antitrust compliance are proposed to better chart the evolution of the legal profession and will be presented in a way that is more useful, user-friendly and amusing for the audience of the antitrust compliance trainings.

A larger context of this initiative and the reason why I am interested in joining this event - in view of the ever-increasing deterrent effects of the penalties imposed on antitrust violations worldwide, the importance of an ex-ante mechanism of an antitrust compliance also rises accordingly to avoid any ‘ex post’ antitrust risks. Antitrust compliance has become a routine task for companies, law firms, enforcers and even academics to follow and work on in their daily life.
Daniel Sokol
USC Gould School of Law

2 contributions 2162 visits

Compliance plays an integral role in antitrust/competition law and this initiative recognizes its growing centrality.
Aik Kor Sia
Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore

Singapore 4 contributions 2195 visits

The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore is honoured to be part of the Antitrust Compliance Summit & Awards Steering Committee. We hope that the awards will spur competition authorities to further raise awareness of competition law through greater recognition of their work.
Martin d’Halluin
News Corp (New York)

United States 8 contributions 7746 visits

In its 2019 guidance, the U.S. Department of Justice emphasized that robust compliance programs need to be forward-thinking: "effective antitrust compliance programs not only prevent, detect, and address antitrust violations, they also further remedial efforts and help foster corporate and individual accountability". Concurrences’ idea to reward innovative compliance initiatives globally is also forward-thinking and should be applauded. I am delighted to be part of the Steering Committee and look forward to seeing a lot of creative programs.

Authors

Testimonials