NEW IT TOOL FOR THE COMMISSION FOR ANTITRUST AND CARTEL PROCEDURES

The EU Commission has designed and made available a new IT tool to make easier and less burdensome the submission of statements and other documents to the Commission’s Directorate- General for Competition (“DG Comp”). The ‘eLeniency’ allows companies and their lawyers to file online, through DG Comp’s secure server, statements and submissions in relation to their leniency applications (e.g. reduction of fines). The system is based on voluntary use and documents can be submitted in any of the 24 official languages of the European Union.

Companies can use this system as part of cartel procedures for submitting documents, providing comments or making formal settlement submissions to the Commission. However, eLeniency can also be used in non-cartel procedures, where an undertaking cooperates with a view to acknowledging an infringement of competition rules.

The Commission reassures companies that this new system provides the same level of protection in terms of confidentiality as the traditional procedure. This means among others, that documents cannot be saved – once a user opens a session, it remains open only for 24 hours – and if a company formally submits a document through the eLeniency system, only the Commission can have access to it. eLeniency facilitates sending confidential documents and requesting information from the DG Comp. Companies can access and use this new system at eleniency.ec.europa.eu, after creating an EU Login account.