Dawn raids are an evergreen in the world of competition law. EU competition authorities use this powerful investigative tool to uncover cartels. A dawn raid is also a process in which the inspectors are more experienced and the staff under extreme pressure. It can lead to costly mistakes as the authorities protect their investigative powers by imposing hefty fines for non-cooperation.

In the first episode of the Competition+ podcast, we discuss how to avoid making mistakes during a dawn raid that can severely damage a company.

As competition authorities nowadays focus their efforts on collecting electronic evidence, we give examples of mistakes that various companies have made when providing inspectors with electronic communications from their employees. We discuss recent cases from the European Commission as well as Member State practice (Germany and Poland) and summarise what companies can do to better protect themselves.

Stay tuned for the next episodes!