An act of good citizenship or white-collar crime? : the role of senior executives in illegal cartel conduct

There are price-fixing cartels and market-sharing cartels, and both adversely affect trade figures. A measurement matrix is used as a methodological framework through which content analysis is conducted to assess whether senior executives were involved in, and/or aware of, the cartel conduct occurring in their organisation. Sixty-nine court outcomes from eleven jurisdictions were analysed. It was found that senior management were involved in 80% of matters analysed; the CEO of a company was actively engaged in 7% of matters; and that the termination of a cartel member’s employment occurred in only 3% of outcomes. The findings suggest that there is still a substantial task ahead for competition regulators to educate and raise the awareness of business people to ensure the provisions of relevant legislation are clearly understood.