How dishonesty killed the cartel offence

This paper argues that the UK cartel offence, introduced by the Enterprise Act of 2002 is no longer workable in its current form. The inclusion of dishonesty was designed to signal the seriousness of cartel practices to the business community and wider public, but dishonesty hinges on a contemporary judgement that requires attitudes to be sufficiently hardened to begin with. The finding in Norris that secret price fixing cannot in itself be dishonest, poor case selection by the OFT and the collapse of the first full trial, all suggest the offence should be repealed or reformed.