The Netherlands Competition Authority (“NMa”), a fairly new authority (established in 1998), recently published its first policy guidelines on fines and leniency. The article gives insight into how the NMa developed the said guidelines and discusses both documents in detail. In view of this, the article sets out the legal framework within which the NMa operates and explains why it was considered important to develop a transparent policy on fines and leniency. An important part of the article analyses the policy and experience of other competition authorities (in particular, the US Department of Justice and the European Commission) and discusses to what extent the NMa was able to follow their approach. As regards a fining policy, it was concluded that existing schemes of foreign competition authorities did not offer a ready-made fining system suitable for the NMa; the NMa therefore developed its own Fining Guidelines. The article furthermore explains how the NMa acknowledged the importance of leniency as an instrument for competition law enforcement and developed its Leniency Guidelines. To a large extent, the NMa Leniency Guidelines follow the leniency rules applied by the US Department of Justice and the new notice on leniency of the European Commission. As explained, leniency programmes that comply with certain basic principles stimulate co-operation between competition authorities. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the NMa’s first experience with its new policy guidelines and some final remarks. The article covers fining decisions of the NMa up to August 2002.
World Competition