Cartels 2026

Introduction

The introductory theme for last year’s guide was change. The throes of change continue into 2026. The astonishing political, technological and socio-economic transitions experienced last year continue and, if anything, have become greater.

The tariffs discussed in this Introduction last year, while struck down by the US Supreme Court earlier this year, continue to have rippling effects on the global economy, complicating the competitive landscape and underscoring how connected commerce has become among nations. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence has begun in earnest to radically transform business and, indeed, life as we know it. Businesses are racing to integrate new technology or risk being left behind. Layoffs have begun; algorithms get more sophisticated by the day; and no one can say for sure where it’s all headed, even those designing the technology.

Add to this the new, heightened and ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and the major disruption to trade routes and across industries. Markets are in turmoil and energy prices are rising dramatically. Air transport, agriculture, manufacturing and other sectors can all expect to feel ripple effects from these conflicts.

Historically, challenging and uncertain economic times have given rise to cartels. Amidst all this change, cartel enforcement remains a priority for enforcement authorities around the globe. Indeed, even cartel enforcement is not immune to this wave of change. Public and private enforcement itself is evolving and adapting to the rapidly changing technology and business environment.

For example, last summer, the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division announced its first ever Whistleblower Rewards Program, in partnership with the US Postal Service, to encourage and enable whistle-blowers to report cartel violations and potentially receive a maximum total reward of 30% of recovered criminal fines in the reported case (DOJ Press Release, Justice Department’s Antitrust Division Announces Whistleblower Rewards Program, 8 July 2025). DOJ has reported receiving a “flurry of tips” and applications, resulting recently in the first reward of USD1 million earlier this year to a whistle-blower in a bid rigging case (DOJ Press Release, Antitrust Division and U.S. Postal Service Make First-Ever Whistleblower Payment: $1M Awarded for Reporting Antitrust Crime, 29 January 2026). This new policy will have major implications for leniency and for a company’s decision to self-report.

Against this backdrop, welcome to the Chambers Cartels 2026 Global Overview. Here, readers will find the current state of play for cartel enforcement and private damages suits in several continents and over a dozen countries.

Frameworks

In many cases, there have been significant and sometimes nuanced changes to cartel laws, procedures and personnel. The contributing authors, all chosen experts in their jurisdictions, will cover the legal and procedural frameworks in their respective countries: What constitutes a violation? What are the key procedures of which one should be aware?

The experts will describe the various leniency and whistle-blower regimes: Does a leniency programme exist and how does it work? Various agencies have described emerging from a dark period or drought of leniency applications. This is likely due to increased agency “own initiative” investigations, combined with individual incentives to report cartels, like DOJ’s new whistle-blower programme mentioned above. Some agencies, like the UK’s CMA, have sharpened the benefits for first-in applicants, creating a more winner-takes-all system (Lucilia Falsarella Pereira, Cartels: being first to apply for leniency matters more than ever, 28 October 2025). The global experts will weigh in by jurisdiction on these developments.

The experts will describe the enforcement framework, giving insights into local cartel regulators and how each works: Who is responsible for cartel enforcement? How do they run an investigation? As more cartels use digital means to communicate and implement agreements, authorities in various regions are adapting to keep up, for example, by searching for evidence stored in the cloud. The EC has developed a bespoke tool for quickly analysing large amounts of data, leading to quicker dawn raids (see Compagnie générale des établissements Michelin v Commission (T-188/24) EU:T:2025:686). The International Competition Network (“ICN”) has formed a Technology Group to share ideas and best practices among regulators.

Remedies will also be covered, so companies and practitioners can fully understand the potential fines and consequences of cartel sanctions in each jurisdiction. Over 40 countries have laws imposing criminal penalties on cartel participants. So, it’s important to know: Are there criminal penalties involved? Can employees go to jail for cartel offences? In the US, DOJ announced that the number of defendants sentenced to prison in FY25 more than doubled from the previous year, with the number of prison days imposed jumping by more than 1200% (Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Daniel Glad Delivers Keynote at the Global Competition Review Cartels: Live! Conference, 3 March 2026).

One potentially significant consequence that stems from cartel regulation is the risk of private civil litigation and follow-on damages: What is the risk of being sued by customers or consumers? How much is at stake? In America, almost as night follows day, this risk is extremely high. As more countries adopt a private damages regime, this risk grows.

This guide and its contributing authors will cover, by jurisdiction, these topics and any respective changes in depth. But the common thread remains that cartel enforcement is a worldwide priority and will continue to be so, especially during and in the aftermath of economic crisis and societal upheaval. This leads to the expanded section at the end of this guide, which outlines trends that echo the theme of this introduction: change.

Trends

When a crisis hits – as with the current energy crisis – questions arise within the industry: Will we miss our quarterly sales targets again? Will customers accept another price increase if our costs keep rising? How can we be sure that our competitors will pass on a cost increase and not take our market share? Under such circumstances and pressure, and as has happened many times in the past, managers are tempted to ask the sales team to find out what the competitors are doing. The salespeople may, in turn, reach out to their trusted counterparts or friends at competing companies to find out for sure what the competitors intend to do. And so it goes.

Crisis Cartels

It was on Valentine’s Day, 14 February 2006, that dozens of FBI agents and prosecutors in the United States and their counterparts across the globe conducted simultaneous raids of all the major passenger airlines and cargo carriers. The 9/11 crisis and subsequent conflicts brought airlines together, prompting them to communicate with one another and widely adopt fuel and security surcharges in response. These actions spurred worldwide government and private enforcement, resulting in billions of dollars in fines, numerous jail sentences and the extradition of several executives to the United States.

Now, amidst a new conflict and energy crisis, airlines and other industries are under tremendous pressure: how will businesses cope? Compliance culture and programmes are more advanced and widely adopted than in 2006, but are compliance programmes up to the task, especially when communication through ephemeral messaging and the use of pricing algorithms are commonplace? And what are various jurisdictions doing to bust up the next big international or domestic cartel?

Labour Market Allocation

In 2015, DOJ announced its Antitrust Guidance for HR Professionals, putting the business community on notice that DOJ would treat naked hiring restrictions, such as no poach agreements and wage agreements, as per se illegal and criminal conduct. In April of last year, DOJ won its first labour market case when a jury in Las Vegas convicted Eduardo Lopez, a CEO of a home healthcare staffing agency, of fixing wages of nurses (see United States v Lopez, No 2:23-cr-00055 (D. Nev.); DOJ Press Release, Jury Convicts Home Health Agency Executive of Fixing Wages and Fraudulently Concealing Criminal Investigation, 14 April 2025).

The Court in that case recently sentenced Mr Lopez to 40 months in prison and more than USD13 million in financial penalties. While much has been written about DOJ’s failure to obtain convictions in no poach agreement cases, DOJ has successfully survived motions to dismiss and the courts have validated DOJ’s view that such conduct is tantamount to market allocation schemes and should be viewed as per se illegal. However, when necessary for a joint venture, potential acquisition or other business collaboration, such discussions can be legitimate and legal. Understanding where the lines are drawn in this new and expanding area of enforcement is critical.

Once limited to the tech and healthcare sectors, no poach enforcement has expanded to other sectors and countries. CADE in Brazil recently brought its first labour market cases involving no poach agreements in the forklift market (CADE Press Release, CADE launches investigation into Brazilian forklift market, 11 December 2024) and the CCI in India recently announced a no poach investigation of the commercial fragrance industry (Aditya Kalra, India probes fragrance giants Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF over deals not to poach workers, Reuters, 17 March 2026). Last year, the EC issued its first-ever fine for a no poach cartel, a whopping EUR329 million (EC Press Release, Commission fines Delivery Hero and Glovo €329 million for participation in online food delivery cartel, 1 June 2025). Meanwhile, late last year, the CMA issued new guidance to HR teams on how competition law applies to labour markets, making it clear that no poach agreements are not anti-competitive behaviour (CMA Guidance, Competing for talent, 9 September 2025).

AI and Pricing Algorithms

Over the past decade, certain technologies have developed into industry-wide tools that help businesses manage inventory and set pricing based on current or recent supply-and-demand data. With widespread industry adoption of such common algorithms, regulators have begun to view this technology with deep suspicion. Can a pricing algorithm function at the centre in a new version of the classic hub and spoke conspiracy? Are the smoke-filled rooms of the cartels of yesteryear being replaced by a virtual reality involving a programme designed to raise prices and maximise profits?

One might think that some evidence of a meeting of the minds or direct human involvement would still be needed to prove a price-fixing agreement among competitors. However, the United States government seems to be leaning in the opposite direction. For example, the US Department of Justice, in recent years, has taken the view that the use of such algorithms, under certain circumstances, can be tantamount to collusion and a per se violation of antitrust laws (Department of Justice, Statement of Interest of the United States, In re: RealPage, Rental Software Antitrust Litigation, Case No 3:23-MD-3071, 15 November 2023). Late last year, DOJ filed a proposed settlement with the Court in the RealPage litigation, which, if approved, would require RealPage to cease having its software use competitors’ non-public information to determine rental prices in runtime operation, among other restrictions (DOJ Press Release, Justice Department Requires RealPage to End the Sharing of Competitively Sensitive Information and Alignment of Pricing Among Competitors, 24 November 2025).

The rapid development and increasingly widespread use of artificial intelligence will also raise questions and challenges related to cartel conduct and enforcement. Depending on how businesses train and use AI, could it become a way to facilitate cartel behaviours? To what extent will businesspeople rely on AI to advise or coach them through delicate competitor communication? Conversely, will regulators be able to use AI to help detect or monitor suspicious pricing patterns or cartel conduct? For example, the UK’s CMA has expressed interest in investing in AI detection tools to scan for bid rigging (CMA Press Release, CMA draft Annual Plan launches the first phase of its new Strategy for 2026 to 2029, 21 January 2026), while Spain’s CNMC already has a bid-rigging AI tool and has expressed its interest in expanding that tool’s capabilities (Francesca McClimont, CNMC looks to bolster AI tools to uncover algorithmic collusion, Global Competition Review, 30 May 2025). We may not know the answers to these and related questions for some time, but practitioners around the globe will need to start considering how clients and regulators will make use of this extraordinary technology.

Information Sharing

With an increased focus on compliance training, businesspeople around the globe are increasingly aware of the risks of engaging in cartel behaviour. Nevertheless, grey-area conduct involving the sharing of confidential and competitively sensitive commercial information, such as pricing, margins, costs (including salaries) and output, appears to be flourishing and can lead companies unwittingly into the crosshairs of regulators. In many jurisdictions, exchanging competitively sensitive information can reduce competitive uncertainty to the customer’s disadvantage. As such, competition regimes and regulators view the sharing of this type of information as a potential cartel offence.

Regulators seem especially suspicious about the use of an industry intermediary. Also, email and text messaging for exchanging information are rapidly being replaced by communication via messaging applications and chat platforms such as Slack or Microsoft Teams. Many such apps are designed to be ephemeral and are not archived or saved, making the exchange of information easier to detect than ever before, much to the dismay of regulators.

In the EU, the thresholds for violation are so low that even a one-off, one-way unsolicited sharing of highly sensitive information, known as unilateral disclosure, can possibly cross over into cartel conduct (see European Commission, Guidelines on the applicability of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to horizontal co-operation agreements, C(2023) 3445 final [2011] OJ C11/1).

At the same time, companies have many legitimate reasons to exchange certain types of information, especially when facing common obstacles such as supply shortages or regulatory concerns. Thus, knowing the laws and the current enforcement landscape in key jurisdictions is critical for businesses.

Environmental, Social and Governance Cartels

Along the lines of pro-competitive reasons for information sharing, many jurisdictions are adopting ESG mandates or policies, which, in turn, have brought businesses together for industry discussions. It is important to understand, by jurisdiction, whether authorities have issued guidance on avoiding cartel behaviour when discussing the adoption of ESG standards. To comply with ESG mandates, companies need to understand the implications of sharing strategies and information that could affect pricing or output.

There appears to be widespread interest among regulators in potential investigations and enforcement actions related to sustainability as a factor in competition. But there is an inconsistency surrounding how to address agreements which pursue legitimate sustainability goals. For example, CADE in Brazil is investigating a soy moratorium (CADE Press Release, CADE upholds interim measure on Soy Moratorium, 8 October 2025), but queries whether this type of agreement would qualify elsewhere, such as the EU, for an effects analysis as a vertical boycott, as opposed to horizontal conduct. Regulators face a tough question: if businesses are coming together and agreeing on how to improve the world and society, should such conduct be prosecuted, given that it is a joint agreement among those in the same industry to take the same or similar actions?

Conclusion

With change and disruption dominating the headlines and current events, it is important to review guides like this one, which will help practitioners and companies understand the dynamics and nuances of cartel practice across the globe. Having this information at the ready and for reference will help to successfully navigate and adapt to these challenges.