A Study Of Cartel Leniency Program

As a kind of widespread anti-competitive behaviour, cartels have created serious damages on market competition status, they grab a super competitive level of profits at the same time limit the economic efficiency and harm the interests of the public, legislation in many countries around the world all take an attitude of getting tough with Cartels. In recent decades, modern civilizations, especially the rapid development of modern material civilizations have been broaden the channel which cartels can improve their concealment. Law enforcement agencies have carried on an excellent exploration on improving the efficiency of case detection and the way to constraint and fight against Cartel illegal and criminal activities more effectively, then the Leniency program was produced. Since the United States carried out the Cartel Leniency program in1978, it gradually appears on the stage of world’s main market economy countries’competition law legislation stage and plays an increasingly significant function in the juridical practice. Now China’s Anti-monopoly Law has also introduced the concept of Leniency program but the abstract and principled provision impairs the enforcement of Leniency program. Therefore, this article tries to put forward some improvement suggestions on the basis of fully observe the legal environment of China.According to the structure that "introduction to questions, system overview, current situation, experience for reference, improvement suggestions", author separated this article into six parts and the main content of each chapter is as follows:Chapter1is "Introduction ".Mainly introduced the topic meaning, literature interview and researching method in order to help the reader to have a general realization both on the article’s researching purpose and the researching status adds the author’s innovation.Chapter2is "An overview of the Cartel Leniency program".In the first part of this chapter, after introducing the basic concept of Leniency program, the author offered some shallow suggestions on unifying Chinese appellation of Leniency program.The second part introduces the research and debate about the basic theory of Leniency program in the terms of legal basis, economic basis and ethical basis.The practice that Cartel Leniency program provides opportunities for offenders to escape the legal sanctions did not violate the law’s value orientation of justice, on the contrary, it’s more conducive to substantive justice on economic law pursues; The pursuit of the maximization of interest is the eternal pursuit of a rational economic man, the "Prisoner’s Dilemma" that created by Leniency program improves the cartel members disclosing to each other; The cooperation that Cartel members provide for the law enforcement agencies to crack down on the crime of cartel has fully demonstrated their sense of repentance, to give them forgiveness is not only based on humanitarian considerations but also reflects the judicial philosophy’s attention has been payed on social and legal double effect.Chapter3is "The current situation and problems of China’s Cartel Leniency program".The author reflected on the reason why our Leniency program failed to achieve well effect:On one hand, lies in the lack of system running environment in our country which performances on the lack of criminal punishment, the lightness of Administrative punishment, the vague civil liability and the chaos law enforcement; On the other hand is the lack of specific applicable conditions including the substantive norms and procedural rules.Chapter4is "The inspection of outside Cartel Leniency programs".In this chapter the author firstly introduces the legislative process and the development profile of Cartel Leniency program, including the United States, European Union and other countries and regions, then summarizes the successful experience of legal transplantation and provides the valuable reference for the construction of Cartel Leniency program in China.The Chapter5"The suggestion for the environment of Cartel Leniency program in China" and the Chapter6"The suggestion for the specific applicable conditions of Cartel Leniency program in China" are the main points in this article.Under the premise of fully respect and combining with the local legal environment, this paper proposed the suggestions to comprehensive build our Cartel Leniency program from the legal responsibility, law enforcement agencies set up, the executive configuration, substantive norms and procedural rules, and so on.