Description

In this era of globalization, a sustainable competition policy is very much needed for the steady growth of a developing country like Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, as an element of a cartel, price fixation is a widespread phenomenon, and consumers have been suffering a lot from such an artificial crisis. None can deny the existence of such market syndication, which has put the life of consumers in a vulnerable situation. Despite the existence of cartels, the competition authority has failed to detect them, and existing anti-cartel enforcement mechanisms have not succeeded in combating those cartels due to the absence of strong and reliable evidence. The purpose of this paper is to search for a sustainable anti-cartel enforcement. Hence, the leniency mechanism could be a game changer for combating cartels in the Bangladeshi competition law field. More than sixty jurisdictions have been using the leniency model to address the cartels that have been a global phenomenon. Younger competition jurisdictions like Bangladesh also might have ample opportunity to incorporate leniency mechanism as anti-cartel enforcement by a simple amendment. There may be some debate among academicians about which stage a country should opt for this model. It is noteworthy that Bangladesh has already passed more than a decade of its competition law journey. Therefore, it is high time to inaugurate a leniency mechanism in our existing Act to address cartel situations in Bangladesh. Hence, this article concludes with the hope that this mechanism will supplement as a sustainable anti-cartel provision that will ensure a competitive market in Bangladesh, breaking the cartels.

Keywords: Artificial Market Crisis, Price Fixation, Anti-Cartel Enforcement, Leniency Mechanism.