While all breaches of sections 4 and 5 of the Competition Act are criminal offences, action in respect of them can be taken either in the criminal or the civil courts, or both. Agreements between competitors to fix prices, limit output or sales, or share markets or customers, infringe section 4 of the Act. Such agreements are commonly known as “hard-core cartels”. Hard-core cartels are the most serious form of anti-competitive behaviour (for more information on types of cartels click here). As a matter of practice, hard-core cartel offences always result in a criminal prosecution.

Where there is enough evidence to show that a hard-core cartel may exist, the Authority prepares a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions, with a recommendation that the parties involved be prosecuted on indictment. Cartel offences committed after 1st July 2002 are prosecuted on indictment in the Central Criminal Court.

In circumstances where the Authority does not consider that the offence warrants prosecution on indictment, it can prosecute the case itself in the District Court. 

Sanctions for hard-core cartel offences

Businesses and individuals convicted of cartel offences face a number of penalties, including fines and imprisonment.

• An undertaking convicted on indictment of participating in a cartel can be fined up to €4m or 10% of turnover, whichever is greater. Similar fines may also be imposed on individual managers or directors of such an undertaking together with a maximum of five years imprisonment.
• The maximum penalty for a summary prosecution is a fine of €3,000 and up to six months imprisonment.

The sanction of imprisonment applies only to hard-core cartels. Other competition offences prosecuted in the criminal courts are subject only to the fines described above.

The table below lists competition cases which have been prosecuted in the criminal courts.

Cartel Immunity Programme

If you are a member of a cartel, you could avoid prosecution if you are the first individual or business to self-report your involvement in the cartel.  You may then avoid fines and jail time. For more information see the Cartel Immunity Programme.