The Leniency Programme – rules and advantages resulting from reporting a cartel
Agreements between undertakings on:
- Direct or indirect price fixing,
- Division of a market, sources of supply or customers,
- Restriction of, or control over, production or sale of goods, including import and export
belong to the most serious ways of distorting competition. Participants of cartel agreements may face high fines for such action: up to 10 % of the net turnover achieved by the undertaking in the relevant market in the last accounting period.
In accordance with the Leniency programme the Office for the Protection of Competition offers participants of a cartel lenience and eventually also the possibility not to impose a fine. If an undertaking notifies a cartel and provides the Office with all available information and proofs, it may completely avoid a sanction or at least achieve a significant decrease in fine.
In case you
- participate in an agreement between undertakings,
- have acquired a company and think that some of the contracts/agreements indicate coordinated action between undertakings,
- maintain relations with undertakings (even informal)
you should consider whether such action does fulfil signs of a cartel and submit an application to the Office according to the Leniency programme. To fulfil the conditions of full immunity a cartel participant must be the first to contact the competition authority. Any ambiguities or enquires about whether it actually is a cartel or not, and whether the Leniency programme may be applied in such a case, can be clarified via consultation with the Office’s employees (contacts stated below).
Conditions under which a fine is not imposed or is decreased
The Office should not impose a fine, which it would otherwise impose, if the undertaking as the first provides the Office with such information and proofs, which enables the Office to conduct an investigation in place, or if the undertaking as the first provides the Office with such information and proofs, which enables the Office to prove the existence of a cartel agreement.
On the basis of the Leniency programme the Office may decrease a fine, in the instance where an undertaking does not provide the Office with information and proof as the first; however, it provides it with such information and proofs, proving the existence of a cartel agreement. This fact constitutes a significant added value in connection to information and proofs the Office already has at its disposal.
In both cases undertakings must fulfil other conditions stipulated in the Notice of the Office together with the procedure for application submission, see
Leniency Programme 400 KB.
Submission of application
To submit an application use:
- the postal address: třída Kapitána Jaroše 7, 604 55 Brno
- the e-mail address: leniency@uohs.cz (exclusively for leniency applications), or e-mail address posta@uohs.cz
- recorded oral submission of application (we recommend to arrange the meeting in advance by telephone)
Date and time of the submission of application will be recorded.
Consultation on the Leniency programme is possible (also anonymously) at the following telephone numbers.
- Mgr. Igor Pospíšil: + 420 542 167 216
- Mgr. Ing. Kamil Nejezchleb: + 420 542 167 284
- Ing. Lenka Štaflová: + 420 542 167 308
