Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

EU to monitor social networks in search for cartel activity

12 May 2016, 3:37 pm

EU regulators may begin to monitor social media to identify individuals involved in illegal price fixing or market sharing, MLex has reported.

Eric Van Ginderachter, the Commission's director of cartels told a conference in Singapore that it is important for investigators to keep up to date with technology and use the right tools, MLex reported.

A team of forensic information technology experts has been put together as the antitrust watchdog moves "from an era where we collected paper-based evidence to an era where we collect more digital evidence", Van Ginderachter said, according to MLex.

Monitoring social media forms part of that search for evidence, Van Ginderachter said.

The Commission is also keen to increase the number of probes that it starts on its own initiative, called "ex-officio" cases, rather than responding to companies who come forward voluntarily, Van Ginderachter said, according to Mlex.

"You need to have ex-officio investigations. We are already at 20% in the last year but we want to get that level higher," Van Ginderachter said according to the news site.

The Commission has levied €4 billion in fines over the past five years, in 20 settlement decisions affecting 84 companies, he said.

Competition law expert Tim Riisager of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com said: "Monitoring social networks is a natural evolution of the Commission’s existing investigative techniques so in many ways this is not surprising. The announcement also reflects an increasing determination on behalf of the Commission to decrease its reliance on whistle blowers to discover cartels and other anti-competitive activity".

"This goal is shared by the UK's competition regulator, which has been vocal about significant investments in its own intelligence gathering functions since its creation in April 2014. However, due to the strict requirements which social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, often require law enforcement agencies to satisfy before releasing private user information, it seems likely that the role of evidence from social media will play a greater role in building a case as opposed to being the initial source for an investigation," Riisager said.