Competition compliance programme

Why a generic manual does not protect anyone

Competition risk is not evenly spread inside a company. It concentrates in a few people and a few conversations: whoever attends the trade association, whoever builds tender offers, whoever negotiates with distributors, whoever sets prices and whoever hires people coming from a competitor. A programme that fails to identify those points, and to tell each of them what to do in concrete terms, changes no behaviour and works as no defence.

How we build it

1. Diagnosis. We review the commercial structure, the markets the company operates in, its presence in trade associations, its tender history and the contracts governing its channels.
2. Risk map by point of contact. Associations, fairs and events, shared customers and suppliers, selection processes, staff movement between competitors and collaboration projects.
3. Policy and manual. With operational rather than declaratory rules: what may be said in an association meeting, what requires asking for it to be minuted, and what requires walking away from the table.
4. Clauses and protocols. Contract language and rules for exchanging information with third parties, including consultants, associations and tender partners.
5. Training. Role-specific sessions built on scenarios the team recognises as their own.
6. Dawn raid protocol. Instructions for the day the authority arrives.
7. Reporting channel and internal investigation. A clear route for what is caught in time.
8. Periodic review. Updating the programme and building the evidence that proves it is applied.

Role-based training

A single company-wide talk reassures the legal team and changes nothing in the operation. We prefer short, specific sessions.

• Sales. Contact with competitors, recommended versus imposed prices, exclusivity and handling of market information.
• Procurement. Joint purchasing, conditions imposed on suppliers and contact with other buyers of the same input.
• Bid teams. Rules for consortia, temporary joint ventures, subcontracting and communication with other bidders.
• Senior management and the board. Personal liability of officers, the duty to supervise and what to do when a red flag appears.

The protocol for the day of the inspection

An administrative inspection is largely won or lost in the first hours. The protocol answers in writing the questions nobody should be improvising at that moment.

• Who receives the officials, who alerts the firm and who accompanies the inspection at each site.
• What is handed over, how it is identified and how a record of it is kept.
• How to handle confidential information and material covered by the lawyer relationship.
• Express instructions not to alter, delete or remove information, and why doing so makes any situation worse.
• What is communicated internally and what is not while the inspection is under way.

What the client receives

• The competition risk map of the business, with the points of contact identified one by one.
• The policy and manual, drafted to be applied by people who are not lawyers.
• The clauses and information exchange protocols, ready to be built into contracts.
• The training delivered, with materials and attendance records.
• The dawn raid protocol, including a short version that can be consulted on the spot.
• The evidence file showing the programme exists and is applied, which is what the company needs to show if an investigation ever comes.