NMa warns senior management of companies

The NMa (Netherlands Competition Authority) has sent out a remarkable signal by imposing fines on Supervisory Directors, as Silvia Vinken and Minos van Joolingen (EU & Competition practice group) noted in the Financieele Dagblad of 16 September 2010. Since October 2007, managers and directors of companies can be personally fined for violations of the Competition Act in which they had de facto control. In the past the NMa did not exercise that power, but it recently fined four Supervisory Directors and one Managing Director. 

In the “Wegener case”, Supervisory Directors were fined as de facto directors for failing to properly perform their duty to supervise the management. Remarkably, that was not a classic cartel case, but rather a case of failure to observe conditions in a merger. Moreover, in that case the violation commenced during a period in which de facto control was not yet punishable.

Click on the attachment below to read the entire article that was published in the Financieele Dagblad on 16 September 2010.