ICC Effective procedural safeguards in competition law enforcement proceedings

Meaningful procedural safeguards in competition law enforcement proceedings are essential to ensuring consistent, predictable, and fair-decision making in competition law investigations. The proliferation of competition laws globally and the increased levels of enforcement by competition agencies with diverging procedural and substantive rules has heightened the risk of inconsistent and inappropriate outcomes.

In recent years, governments, competition agencies and private sector organizations have urged for a clear framework of best practices on procedural fairness in competition enforcement proceedings. To this end, the ICC Competition Commission calls for renewed attention on this issue and provides in this discussion paper a number of fundamental overarching principles of due process that should apply in competition law enforcement proceedings. It then describes specific safeguards that agencies should put in place to ensure their rules and procedures conform to due process norms and reflect current best practice.

This discussion paper is in line with the 2010 ICC Recommended Framework for International Best Practices in Competition Law Enforcement Proceedings as well as the guidance and standards advanced by the International Competition Network (ICN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC) and the American Bar Association in the past years.