DOJ offers antitrust compliance guidance in ECCP update

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has added antitrust compliance guidance in an update to its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (ECCP).

The guidance, issued Nov. 12, said prosecutors should evaluate how well a company’s antitrust compliance program handles issues such as “price fixing (including wage fixing and conspiracies to suppress other terms of price competition), bid rigging, market allocation, and monopolization, as well as obstructive acts that imperil the integrity of antitrust investigations.”

As with the rest of the ECCP, the DOJ evaluates corporate compliance programs during criminal investigations, and again when making sentencing recommendations, which include whether to impose obligations like an independent compliance monitor.