A Mock Dawn Raid - An exceptional day at the office
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If competition authorities suspect that an infringement of competition law has taken place, they often conduct surprise inspections, also known as dawn raids, at offices and other facilities of companies.
A dawn raid - why should I be prepared?
If a company does not comply with its legal obligations during a dawn raid, significant sanctions may be imposed. This means every employee’s actions or lack of actions can lead to serious consequences.
In addition to the risk of sanctions for improper conduct, it is also important for the company to recognize whether the inspectors conduct the inspection within their mandate and respect the rights of the company and its employees when doing so.
A dawn raid also has a disruptive impact on the company's regular day-to-day business, and it is useful to know how to minimize these negative effects.
Therefore, it is crucial to have a clear internal game-plan and written guidelines in place before inspectors come knocking on your door. All employees of your company must know how to conduct themselves during an inspection and be aware of their rights and obligations throughout the dawn raid.
To be a winner, you need a game-plan. A game-plan that works.
Employees need to know what to do, and perhaps even more importantly, what not to do, during a dawn raid. In order for our customers to be prepared in the best possible way, Fondia advises and prepares dawn raid guidelines, carries out trainings and conducts so called "mock dawn raids" at the customer's premises. A mock dawn raid provides in-depth training to ensure that your employees are prepared when competition authorities strike.
How does a mock dawn raid work?
In a mock dawn raid, Fondia's competition lawyers, acting as a team of fictitious investigators, will use a made-up but realistic storyline to conduct the “dawn raid”, all the while testing your employees (and how your dawn raid guidelines work in practice).
Throughout the exercise, Fondia's team will closely examine for example the knowledge, comprehension, efficiency and attitudes of the employees and management.
The intensive exercise will last a few hours after which Fondia's team will put together a presentation of its findings and go through the conclusions with the employees and management. The feedback will concentrate on areas of possible inadequacies in complying with the guidelines, weak points in current instructions or procedures, or deficiencies in the understanding of the rules or rights and obligations of the company and employees, and, of course, will offer solutions and recommendations for fixing these issues.
During a mock dawn raid, your employees and management will not only become aware of the importance of complying with dawn raid rules and regulations and internal guidelines, but also get to know the competition lawyers at Fondia, who will be there to assist and safeguard your rights in the event of an actual dawn raid.
So, in a nutshell, why go the extra mile and have a mock dawn raid?
A mock dawn raid will help you:
Test and assess the company's dawn raid guidelines
Evaluate how familiar employees are with your dawn raid guidelines and how compatible their actions are with the given guidelines
Provide an excellent form of training for employees in a realistic and motivating setting
Increase the awareness of the importance of compliance with competition law and the risks it entails
Want to hear more? Contact our competition lawyers, who will be happy to help you!
