The legal nature of antitrust compliance as a mechanism for respect of national and in- ternational legal regulation of protection of economic competition

Abstract

The article considers the legal nature of antitrust compliance as a mechanism of respect for national and international legal regulation of protection of economic and commercial competition. The author researched the influence of antitrust compliance on the quality of competition advocacy, on the prevention of violations of legislative norms in the field of protection of economic competition and on reducing the overall workload on the state antitrust authorities. The article analyzes the legal concept of antitrust compliance in narrow and broad interpretations. It is proposed to examine the legal nature of antitrust compliance through a functional approach, which includes the vectors of antitrust compliance that constitute its essence, as well as through the normative provisions of antitrust compliance at the legislative level.The article describes in detail such vectors of antitrust compliance as assessment of market specifics, assessment of own market share, assessment of risk zones in connection with information exchange, assessment of the level of employees’ awareness of compliance with corporate antitrust compliance rules, assessment of potentially high-risk forms of legal activities (in particular the dominant position, the risk of unfair competition, horizontal and vertical agreements, mergers and acquisitions agreements, not providing information to the state antitrust authorities. The article describes in detail such vectors of antitrust compliance as assessment of market specifics, assessment of own market share, assessment of risk zones in connection with information exchange, assessment of the level of employees’ awareness of compliance with corporate antitrust compliance rules, assessment of potentially high-risk forms of legal activities (in particular the dominant position, the risk of unfair competition, horizontal and vertical agreements, mergers and acquisitions agreements, not providing information to the state antitrust authorities).Special attention is paid to the influence of antitrust compliance mechanism in M&A transactions. The author links the provision on antitrust compliance at the legislative level with the overall effectiveness of legal regulation of protection of economic competition.The article extensively examines the forms of legislative provisions on antitrust compliance, in particular in the form of recommendations, standards and norms of laws. The author analyzes the experience of foreign state antitrust authorities regarding the normative provisions of the antitrust compliance mechanism. The article reviews approaches of the European Commission, the Competition Bureau of Canada, the French Competition Authority, the UK Office of Fair Trading, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and others. In addition, the author highlights ways to encourage the implementation of antitrust compliance in companies by recognizing the existence of antitrust compliance programs as a mitigating circumstance in the case of punishment, including by reducing the relevant sanctions. The author focuses on the relevant foreign jurisprudence. The legislative provisions of separate vectors of antitrust compliance in the Ukrainian legislation were found, in particular, a review of the leniency program was made. The implementation of a comprehensive regulatory and legal establishment of the mechanism of antitrust compliance in Ukraine is proposed.