If you are a cartelist fixing prices across Europe with your competitors and happen to be reading this (highly unlikely, though), you’ll be happy to know that the risk of facing an investigation and a massive fine is, to say the least, pretty low.
Why? Because in 2024, the European Commission adopted just one—yes, one—decision, imposing a bit over €48 million in fines, according to its own data. But 2023 wasn’t exactly a standout year either, with four decisions and around €89 million in fines. Overall, since 2022—post-COVID—we’re looking at an average of 2.33 decisions per year, totalling €326 million in fines for 21 companies. That means the average cost of being in a cartel (if you are caught) came out to around €15.5 million per company.
Interestingly, this downward trend in cartel investigations and fines isn’t unique to Europe, but it’s more pronounced here than elsewhere. OECD data shows that while cartel investigations are down across OECD countries, they’re actually up in non-OECD countries. Regionally, both investigations and fines have decreased in Europe, while in the Americas and Asia, one or both have increased.
Is it time to devote more resources to cartel investigations instead of focusing so much on dominance cases in big tech? Probably. After all, in Antitrust 101, cartels are framed as the most harmful practice for society. And let’s be honest—some extra cash from cartelists flowing into the EU budget wouldn’t be the worst way to help finance the €800 billion reArm Europe Plan. I’d really prefer not to see another new tax.
It would be nice to believe there are no more cartels out there, and that all we have left are digital markets to investigate. But if cartels are still operating—and we rely on leniency applications to uncover them—the Commission might need to rethink the carrot-stick equation. Right now, cartelists may not be doing the maths and concluding they’re better off coming forward.
Compare the risk of fines and damage claims with the profits—whether through higher prices or a boosted company valuation—and the incentive to blow the whistle seems limited. Sometimes, the damages a company could face for exposing the cartel may be even higher than the fine itself (on average €15.5 million), so why volunteer? If the EU investigates just one or two cartels per year, and companies don’t step forward, this system isn’t going to work as intended.
Let’s take the example of the salmon farmers. Cermaq, Grieg Seafood, Bremnes, Lerøy, Mowi, and SalMar are under scrutiny and may be fined. Let’s crunch the numbers for one of them: Grieg Seafood.
The maximum fine could be 10% of annual revenue. According to Grieg’s reports, for the last year of infringement (2019), that could mean around €40 million. The company’s gross profits rose from €150 million (2015) to €325 million (2019)—I don’t have earlier data for 2011–2014—but interestingly, in 2019, when the alleged collusion ended, gross profits fell to €245 million. I’m not saying all their profit came from illegal price fixing, but it’s safe to say some of it did.
We could also look at the money retailers are claiming from the salmon farmers as an estimate of illicit gains. In the UK alone, the plaintiffs estimate €807 million in losses. Divide that by the eight defendants, and each one could be facing roughly €100 million in claims (on the other hand, this is roughly the money a company made thanks to the cartel, just in the UK). This tells us two things: 1) It makes little sense to apply for leniency if you’ll later face damage claims bigger than the fine savings, and 2) even if you do get fined and sued, the profits still outweigh the costs. On top of that, Grieg’s valuation increased by about €9 billion.
The Commission may adopt one or two cartel decisions in 2025, which would be an improvement over 2024. But maybe it’s time to rethink our priorities.
