Integrating Competition Compliance Into the Business

Corporate compliance programs are increasingly the norm, but with great variety among them.  What it means to have an effective antitrust compliance program, however, is not always simple.  Antitrust is full of grey boundaries and so a compliance policy can never completely eliminate antitrust violations as a business risk.  It is possible, however, to create a program that is effective in building awareness of antitrust rules.  Government guidance is only so helpful in building a compliance program.  Enforcers are focused more on negative caveats — the loss of credit for a compliance program if certain conditions are absent — and the threat of costly sanctions for those who fail to avoid a violation.  So, corporate compliance officers must still navigate what their organizations should implement, and how to tailor it to the risks and their organization’s business processes.  The starting point when doing is a discussion around business goals for compliance and a discussion of the business processes to understand where there is risk and where the business can integrate antitrust considerations and incentives.

By Noah A. Brumfield^[1]

I. INTRODUCTION

Corporate compliance programs are increasingly the norm. We take it as a given that a company will have something in place. And, so, the typical conversation around such programs starts with less on why a company should adopt a compliance regime, and more on what they need to