Introduction

Summary

At the start of the 1990s, the world was still a relatively hospitable place for cartels. Many enforcers, such as the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, viewed cartels as largely operating in local or at most domestic markets and that senior executives of major corporations were not so audacious as to operate a global cartel. Turning to the European Commission, it pursued several national business arrangements that affected trade between the member states as part of its European integration objective, but mostly with injunctive relief, and not punishing fines. Some of its countries, such as The Netherlands, did not even have a competition law prohibiting cartels. However, by the end of the 1990s, the DOJ’s Antitrust Division and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition were aggressively prosecuting a slew of international cartels that had been operating for years, while the Netherlands had at long last adopted a competition law and were prosecuting a massive construction cartel with hundreds of members.