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Competition authority raids: a new dawn?

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Dawn raids on modern workplaces are changing. Ludovica Pizzetti & William Radcliffe set out what businesses need to know
  • Sets out the latest trends in raids by competition authorities in different jurisdictions.
  • Explains how modern working practices affect liability for both companies and employees.

The scene of the crime. An FBI windbreaker, a door being broken down, a detective jaded by a broken system, shouting, ‘This is a raid!’ while furtive criminals rush to escape. Popular culture paints a vivid picture that springs to mind whenever discussing a ‘raid’. Though dawn raids by competition authorities lack such cinematic flair, they keep the drama. Even minor mistakes may snowball into significant fines.

Post-pandemic, dawn raids are back, and authorities around the world have not shied away from using their powers to the full extent.

Dawn raids continue to be daunting experiences: fast-moving and data-intensive processes that companies can never be sufficiently ready for, and where even the most trivial-seeming procedural irregularity carries a several-million-euro price tag, regardless

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Birketts—trainee cohort

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