Do EU fines deter price fixing?

Mario Mariniello, a competition policy expert at Bruegel, analyses the impact of the EU’s fines in the cartels operating within Europe. The findings of his latest paper, "Do European Union fines deter price fixing?" show that the profits of cartels can sometimes be higher than the fines imposed by the Commission.

During times of economic downturn, when authorities take the companies’ struggles into consideration when fixing fines, this is especially noticeable. For this reason, Mariniello proposes that fines are higher, and that EU authorities reduce the time of their investigations.