The Competition Authority's record in tracking down cartels is "next to dire", a new review says. The study by the London-based Law Business Research group placed the Irish authority in 12th position in a review of global competition enforcers, the same position as a year ago.
Referring to last year's analysis, the review said "the prosecution of cartels had been next to dire" and "2001-02 represented little change from the previous five years," it added.
"The authority appeared to struggle to unearth evidence of new cartels, launched limited dawn raids in areas where it had some material to back up suspicions and secured no positive results. Its track record is now one conviction in five years (and that defendant pleaded guilty in the lowest court in Ireland. "
Price-fixing has been estimated to cost Irish consumers €635 million every year while annual "dead-weight" losses to the Irish economy due to cartels have been put at €1.27 billion.
But while cartel inquiries were a weakness, the group identified human resources, general scrutiny of markets and independence from political influence as moderate strengths.
It found economic expertise within the authority was strong and on a par with the European Commission or above it. In addition, leadership was a strength.
The study said the body's chairman, Dr John Fingleton, was a "highly respected economist" and was proving to be a "good administrator".
But: "Some correspondents suggest that the international conference circuit is distracting Fingleton from his work in Ireland, and more could be done to promote the authority's role among Irish businesses."
When contacted, Dr Fingleton said: "If you take last year, I spoke at three or four international events. That's fairly limited." International work was very important and a policy specialist in the area had been appointed, he said.
On cartels, he said it took time to build up expertise evidence in cartel cases and that much of the work necessarily took place in private. Also the authority had had a staffing difficulty two years ago and many key staff had left.
The turnover now was small and the full complement of staff would be in place by the end of the year.
The authority came behind the US, placed first, and Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Australia and Canada in the ranking, finishing ahead of New Zealand, Denmark, Japan and the Netherlands.
It achieved 3.5 rating on a scale up to 5.
The reviewers said: "We consider the Competition Authority a predictable organisation. It is a well-managed, forward-thinking body. If it can learn how to detect cartels ... it will be among Europe's best agencies."
