Counsel are often tasked with providing antitrust compliance training to employees and executives, sometimes with little notice and in the midst of juggling many other projects. Violations of antitrust laws can be very costly for companies. Recent antitrust fines imposed by the government on individual companies have exceeded $100 million, and civil damages can prove even more costly. To prevent, detect and mitigate the costs associated with violations of antitrust laws, counsel should ensure their clients have an effective antitrust compliance program that includes:

For more information on corporate antitrust compliance programs, see Practice Note, Antitrust Compliance Programs.

To help counsel do their job and provide effective antitrust compliance training, Practical Law Antitrust has created a PowerPoint presentation counsel can easily customize to quickly be prepared to provide antitrust compliance training at a moment's notice. Practical Law's Antitrust Hypotheticals for Compliance Training: Dealings with Competitors covers scenarios and basic antitrust principles under US law that commonly apply to most manufacturers dealing with competitors.

Practical Law's presentation explains the answers to hypothetical questions and distinguishes situations where the facts may violate a company's antitrust compliance policy even though they may not directly violate the antitrust law. The presentation can be quickly downloaded, after minimal customization, and be used to conduct antitrust training in-person, online or by video.

Assume you are in-house counsel to Acme, a company that manufactures seat belts for use in cars. The head of your legal department, Sally Smith, calls and tells you to conduct an antitrust compliance training tomorrow via video conference for Acme's national sales force. Sally is concerned because Acme's sales force has recently had a great deal of turnover and the new hires have not yet had formal antitrust compliance training. The auto parts industry has recently been the subject of a massive government investigation into price-fixing and bid-rigging (see DOJ Auto Parts Cartel Investigation Chart). Even though you are juggling multiple projects, you tell her you are confident that you can perform the training tomorrow using the compliance training materials on Practical Law's website and agree to be the compliance point-person going forward.