Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Cartel offence definition

What does Cartel offence mean? The cartel offence is the UK criminal offence for individuals who agree to engage in hardcore horizontal cartel conduct such as price‑fixing, market/customer allocation, output limitation or bid‑rigging. It is defined in legislation by the enterprise Act 2002, s 188 (as amended) and applies across England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Since 2014, prosecutors no longer need to prove dishonesty; the offence targets secret cartel agreements, subject to statutory exclusions and defences where arrangements are disclosed to customers or made public. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigates and, in England & Wales and Northern Ireland, prosecutes; in...

The criminal cartel offence in the UK: pre-2014 dishonesty test, ERRA 2013 reforms, statutory exclusions and defences, CMA/SFO MoU, prosecution guidance and immunity

Published by a LexisNexis Competition expert

Practice notes

The creation of the Competition and Market Authority (CMA) in 2013

The establishment of the Competition and Market Authority (CMA) in 2013 coincided with an overhaul of a component of the criminal Cartel offence that prosecutors had to prove to convict directors and officers. When the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 (ERRA 2013) commenced on 1 April 2014, the dishonesty element of the cartel offence was scrapped, marking a radical change to what prosecutors had previously been required to establish. Under the revised regime, an individual commits the offence by agreeing, with one or more persons, that two or more undertakings will take part in specified prohibited cartel arrangements (price-fixing, market-sharing, bid-rigging, or limiting output), regardless of dishonesty. Any such arrangements must have occurred in the UK to be caught. As explained further below, this shift is partly offset by new exceptions, covering notification of customers, publication of arrangements, and compliance with a legal requirement, as well as defences, including that the accused did not intend to conceal information from customers or the CMA, and sought legal advice. Nevertheless, the amendments expand the scope for prosecutions and place the burden of proof on defendants when advancing a defence...

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Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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