Dawn raids

Check the Commission’s order

The Commission officials will hand you an “order for an inspection”. Please read it carefully. It authorises the officials to enter the company premises and inspect documents.

The order is an official document of the European Commission, bears the flag of the European Union and is signed by a representative of the Commission. Unlike with the German competition authorities (Federal Cartel Office, regional competition authorities), the inspection does not have to be ordered by a court.

The order should include the following information:

• Who is the target of the proceedings (company under suspicion)?
• What is the reason for the investigation (accusation)?
• Which premises are permitted to be searched (address)?
• What are the officials permitted to search for (evidence)?

These details are important because they limit the officials’ investigative powers. The Commission is not permitted to search premises that are not named in the order. If the order does not contain details, please ask the officials for the relevant information.

Verify the officials’ identities

Check the identity of the officials from their official IDs and make a note of their names and positions. The Commission’s inspection order will have an “inspection authorisation” attached listing the names of the officials who are permitted to carry out the search.

Notify your legal counsel immediately

Make sure the management is notified as soon as the Commission officials arrive.

Also contact the following persons immediately:

• Your legal department and/or compliance officer if you have one
• Contact the Noerr Dawn Raid team. We are familiar with how the competition authorities operate and can assist you with our experience. However, the officials do not have to wait for external lawyers to arrive. So it is important to make a call quickly.

Send a copy of the inspection order and all other documents you have received from the Commission to the above people.

Ask the officials to wait for your legal counsel

Ask the officials to wait for your legal counsel (legal department, compliance officer or Noerr Dawn Raid team) to arrive before starting the inspection.

The officials are often willing to wait a certain amount of time if it is ensured that no documents are removed or evidence is otherwise destroyed during this time. But note that the officials do not have to fulfil your request.

While you are waiting, find out from the officials how they intend to proceed with the inspection. Note the answers.

Appoint one person as the main contact

You should give the Commission the name of one person who will coordinate all action taken by your company. Tell the Commission officials and all company employees to contact that person with any questions about the procedure for the inspection. In addition, that person is the only person who should be contacted if the Commission officials have questions about the contents of documents or otherwise have questions about the facts being investigated.

Put together a team to shadow the officials

You may and should shadow the Commission officials during their work. Every official should be shadowed if possible by at least one staff member from your company. This lets you monitor the inspection afterwards and draw valuable conclusions about what the officials know. In addition, the officials can find their way around the company more easily with your help, making the process quicker.

The team should include people from departments with little connection to the market, with a low risk of personal involvement in cartel agreements (e.g. legal department, accounting department).

Explain the tasks to the team members; these tasks are described in → 3. Shadowing the officials.

Give the IT department instructions

Searching for electronic documents is virtually always the focus of any inspection. You are obliged by the inspection order to let the Commission access your company’s IT data.

Explain the tasks to the IT department staff; these tasks are described in → 6. Searches of electronic data.

Find a room for the Commission officials

Offer the officials a room they can use during the inspection, for example for meetings and to collect and inspect documents. The room should be situated somewhere where they will be as inconspicuous as possible during ongoing business operations.

Inform company employees

Inform all company employees in the departments the Commission officials are spending time in that there is an official investigation underway. Send an email about this or ask the managers in charge to inform their staff.

Company employees who do not need to be present during the inspection may leave the company.

Also tell them the following:

• The Commission officials must not be disturbed in their work under any circumstances. Resisting the officials or obstructing their work in any way can lead to severe penalties (fines or arrest).
• Company employees must not destroy or hide documents or delete emails under any circumstances.
• Company employees should speak to their supervisors or the main contact regarding all questions about the investigation. This applies even if the company employees are approached by the Commission officials.
• The fact that the investigation is being conducted must be kept confidential. In particular, no outsiders may be informed (such as customers, competitors, the press, family or other third parties).

Need for shadowing

The Commission officials may and should be shadowed during the whole inspection by employees from the company. Form a team to do this (→ 2. Further action to take at the start of the inspection).

Tasks for team members

The team members have the following tasks:

• Every Commission official is to be shadowed by one team member during the whole inspection.
• The team members are to record all actions taken by the officials. This includes: Which rooms are entered? Which documents do they check? What questions do they ask? What answers are they given?
• The team members will lead the officials to the rooms and present them with the documents they request.
• Regarding questions about the contents of documents or other questions about the facts examined, the team members will refer the officials to the main contact at your company.
• The team members will make sure the officials can do their work undisturbed. Under no circumstances may the officials be obstructed, documents removed, data deleted or third parties warned. Any obstruction of the Commission’s work may lead to severe penalties for the company and the people doing so (such as fines or arrest).

Especially important: Record the search terms

The Commission officials usually search the electronic documents at the company on site using forensic software → 6. Searches of electronic data. The officials may be and are to be shadowed during this activity too. Note all search terms the officials use in their search. Commonly used search terms are the names of competitors and customer. The officials also often search for keywords like “cartel”, “friends” or “price war” and for the dates of possible meetings of competitors. These search terms which a company cannot obtain any other way allow valuable conclusions to be drawn about how much the officials know.

The company must give the Commission officials access to all rooms, real property and means of transport and present all documents they ask for. That also means unlocking a cupboard for the officials or providing the password to an electronic account on request so the officials can check the contents.

Company rooms, vehicles and documents

The following premises, items and people may generally be searched by the officials:

• All company rooms listed in the inspection order
• Desks, cupboards, file archives
• Business records such as files, correspondence, memos, diaries, accounting documents, travel expense reports
• Electronic documents such as emails, presentations, Excel files, Word documents
• Company vehicles (even if partly for personal use)
• Briefcases, laptops, calendars, address books, mobile phones
• Data on company servers
• Personal devices in the company that are also used for business purposes (“bring your own device”)

Private rooms, vehicles and documents

If this is expressly stated in the inspection order, the officials may also search personal property such as:

• Private homes and real property
• Private vehicles
• Personal devices and documents outside the company

Purely personal devices and documents

Purely personal devices and documents are not allowed to be searched by the officials unless the inspection order states otherwise in exceptional cases.

However, if the devices or documents are located at the company, the officials may satisfy themselves that they are indeed personal items. This is because it can generally be assumed that items on a company’s business premises are not private.

Items not in the inspection order

The Commission is only allowed to search for documents that fall within the scope of the inspection order. However, if the Commission comes across a document by chance during the inspection which indicates another breach of competition law, it may take this opportunity to initiate additional new proceedings and request a copy of the document in question.

The Commission is not allowed to search documents not covered by the inspection order (such as documents in vehicles belonging to third parties outside the company).

Correspondence with external lawyers (attorney-client privilege)

European law protects the confidentiality of communications between client and lawyer. The Commission officials are therefore not allowed to simply access the correspondence between a company and its (external) lawyers. For the attorney-client privilege to take effect, however, certain conditions must be met:

• The lawyer must be admitted to practice in an EU Member State.
• The lawyer must be an external lawyer.
• The lawyer is currently advising the company being searched.
• The documents are confidential and contain advice on defending the company.

This means that correspondence with the in-house legal department can be searched by the officials as can correspondence with lawyers from third countries (such as the USA) or with external lawyers (such as those of business partners). The attorney-client privilege also does not apply if documents (which are actually privileged) have been forwarded to a third party. It may be useful for the privileged lawyer correspondence to be labelled as such (“Legally privileged and confidential” or “Confidential defence correspondence”, for example).

If in doubt, ask your legal department or legal counsel whether a document is privileged.

It may have to be explained to the officials why a document is not part of the inspection. If the company invokes attorney-client privilege and no agreement with the officials can be reached on site, the usual practice is for the inspection team to put the relevant document in a sealed envelope. The Commission is not allowed to know the contents of the document until it has made a decision at a later date (which the court can review) on the categorisation of the document.

Data search is the focus of the inspection

The search for electronic documents is extremely important in practice and virtually always forms the focus of an inspection. The officials will demand access to all data carriers which can be attributed to the “target people” at the heart of the investigations. These include their computer hard drives, mobile phones, email accounts and network folders. Backups are included if there are any.

Commission is entitled to full access to all IT data

You must give Commission officials access to your company’s data. This includes explaining the set-up and structure of the IT system, handing over the required passwords, allowing access to user accounts, granting administrator rights etc. The Commission can also demand that certain email accounts are temporarily frozen to prevent the people concerned from deleting data.

In practice the Commission makes copies of all data that can be attributed to the “target people”. The copied data is then searched for search terms by the inspection team on site using forensic analysis software (e-search). The documents filtered out are examined individually and those considered relevant are labelled.

Shadowing Commission officials

During this activity, too, the officials may and are to be shadowed by members of the shadowing team. All search terms the Commission team uses for their electronic search are to be recorded because the Commission does not notify the company of these terms. However, the search terms allow valuable conclusions to be drawn about how much the Commission knows → 3. Shadowing the officials

After completing the electronic examination, the company representatives will usually be given the chance to comment on the labelled documents and raise any objections to the Commission taking them. Finally, the inspection team copies the selected documents onto a DVD and gives the company a copy.

It sometimes happens that the officials ask for more documents than they can inspect in a single day. In such cases, the documents are normally stored in a separate room on the company’s premises and the investigation is continued the next day. The storage room is then sealed off.

Make sure that nobody tries to gain access to the room after sealing, as breaking the seal or even the slightest tampering with/alteration of the seal can lead to a very high fine. Clear warnings should be posted and, if necessary, an employee should be assigned to ensure no one tries to enter the room and tamper with the seal (e.g. cleaning staff). Simply locking the door is not enough.

Take photos of the seal and the opening of the seal by the officials so you can prove later that the seal has not been tampered with or altered.

No originals are to be taken

The Commission officials are not permitted to take custody of, confiscate or remove original documents. The advantage for the company is that all originals stay at the company.

Copies may be taken

However, the officials may make copies of documents covered by the inspection order and take these with them. This also applies to documents containing business secrets.

The Commission copies electronic files onto DVDs. The officials will make one copy for themselves and one copy for the company. Usually the company or its legal counsel has the opportunity beforehand to comment on any prohibitions on using them.

If the officials do not manage to fully inspect large amounts of electronic data on site, they can also copy the data set and take it with them to Brussels for further inspection.

Duty to provide information

During an inspection the officials are permitted to demand explanations from the company’s representatives on facts or documents related to the inspection. The officials may record the answers. The answers must be correct, complete and not misleading. Otherwise the Commission may impose a fine on the company.

However, statements made by company employees who are not authorised to make statements on the company’s behalf can be corrected by the company at a later date (within a deadline set by the Commission).

Limits on the duty to provide information

You do not have to answer questions from the Commission if by answering them you would be admitting to a breach by the company of competition law. However, the right to not incriminate oneself only applies if the answer would directly admit to a crime. However, you cannot refuse to give information which is of a “purely factual nature”. This applies even if the information and documents requested can be used to prove an infringement by your company.

As a rule, you have to answer the following questions:

• When and where did the meeting take place?
• Which documents were exchanged at the meeting? ?
• Which companies took part in the meeting?
• Provide all of the documents in your possession that relate to the meeting (e.g. invitation, minutes, written notes).

Aside from that, you do not have to answer questions that are not related to the subject matter or purpose of the inspection. The Commission cannot request information on general questions that require careful consideration and possibly extensive investigation within the company.

Seek legal advice!

In an exceptional situation, such as a search, it is easy to try and give explanations without having thought about them carefully. Therefore, if possible, try to avoid making comments on the case:

• You can answer questions related to the inspection process, such as the location of documents or the company’s structure (e.g. abbreviations of names, internal company abbreviations, position of a person in the company), briefly, factually and precisely. If you are unsure how to answer a question, do not speculate. Say instead: “I don’t know”.
• Tell the officials that you are willing to answer other questions in writing. Make a note of the specific questions. Consult with your legal counsel before responding.
• If officials insist on questioning someone formally, it is crucial that you ask to have a legal counsel present. This is because the distinction between admissible questions about facts (duty to provide information) and inadmissible questions relating to a confession (right to remain silent) is very difficult to draw in individual cases.
• If they question someone formally, the Commission’s officials have to make a record of it. You should review this record afterwards to make sure that it is accurate.

DVDs with copied documents

During the closing meeting, the Commission’s officials will give you the DVDs with the copied data (→ 6. Searches of electronic data) and, if there are any, records of the questioning (→ 9. Questioning by the Commission). A representative of the company will then be asked to confirm receipt in writing.

Compare the lists you receive from the Commission with your own records. If you notice any discrepancies, bring them to the officials’ attention and request corrections.

The Commission’s inspections usually last several days, but end no later than midday on a Friday so that the Commission staff have enough time to travel back to Brussels. If the Commission’s team is unable to finish reviewing the electronic data within this period, they will take copies of the data that have not yet been reviewed to Brussels in a sealed envelope. They will continue the review there later and company representatives will have the opportunity to be present during the review.

Prepare an internal report

The company employees who were shadows during the inspection (→ 3. Shadowing the officials) should document the process in an internal report immediately after the Commission’s officials have left. Make a record of all search terms the Commission’s team use in their electronic search. This information forms an important basis for the company’s further decisions on how to organise its defence strategy.

Organising a defence and preparing a press statement

After the inspection, you should evaluate whether it would be reasonable to seek a judicial review and plan your company’s subsequent defence strategy.

Prepare a statement for potential press enquiries. Besides this, you should anticipate questions from your customers, business partners and company employees, and prepare responses. Make sure the wording of all statements is coordinated with your legal counsel.

Check the search warrant

The competition authority officials will hand you a search warrant. Please read it carefully. It authorises the officials to enter the company premises and inspect documents.

The search must normally have been ordered by a judge (in the case of the Federal Cartel Office, this will be the Bonn Local Court (Amtsgericht)). Where there is an “imminent danger”, officials are permitted to conduct a search without a court order.

The warrant should include the following information:

• Who is the target of the proceedings (company under suspicion)?
• What is the reason for the investigation (accusation)?
• Which premises are permitted to be searched (company, address)?
• What are the officials permitted to search for (evidence)?

These details are important because they limit the officials’ investigative powers. The competition authority officials are not permitted to search companies and premises that are not named in the order. However, if there is an “imminent danger”, the officials may be able to extend the search to additional rooms.

If the order does not contain details, please ask the officials for the relevant information.

Verify the officials’ identities

Ask for the officials’ business cards or official ID cards and make a note of their names and positions.

Notify legal counsel immediately

Make sure that management is notified as soon as the officials arrive.

Also contact the following persons immediately:

• Your legal department and/or compliance officer if you have one
• Contact the Noerr Dawn Raid team. We are familiar with how the competition authorities operate and can assist you with our experience. However, the officials do not have to wait for external lawyers to arrive. So it is important to make a call quickly.

Send a copy of the search warrant and any other documents you have received from the competition authority officials to the above people.

Ask the officials to wait for your legal counsel

Ask the officials to wait for your legal counsel (legal department, compliance officer or Noerr Dawn Raid team) to arrive before starting the search.

The officials are often willing to wait a certain amount of time if it is ensured that no documents are removed or evidence is otherwise destroyed during this time. But note that the officials do not have to fulfil your request.

While you are waiting, find out from the officials how they intend to proceed with the search. Note the answers.

Appoint one person as the main contact

You should give the competition authorities the name of one person who will coordinate all action taken by your company. Tell the competition authority officials and all company employees to contact that person with any questions about the procedure for the search. In addition, that person is the only person who should be contacted if the competition authority officials have questions about the contents of documents or otherwise have questions about the facts being investigated.

Put together a team to shadow the officials

You may and should shadow the competition authority officials during their work. Every official should be shadowed if possible by at least one staff member from your company. This lets you monitor the search afterwards and draw valuable conclusions about what the officials know. In addition, the officials can find their way around the company more easily with your help, making the process quicker.

The team should include people from departments with little connection to the market, with a low risk of personal involvement in cartel agreements (e.g. legal department, accounting department).

Explain the tasks to the team members; these tasks are described in → 3. Shadowing the officials.

Give the IT department instructions

Searching for electronic documents is virtually always the focus of any search. You are obliged by the search warrant to let the competition authority officials access your company’s IT data.

Explain the tasks to the IT department staff; these tasks are described in →6. Searches of electronic data.

Find a room for the competition authority officials

Offer the officials a room they can use during the search, for example for meetings and to collect documents. The room should be situated somewhere where they will be as inconspicuous as possible during ongoing business operations.

Inform company employees

Inform all company employees in the departments the competition authority officials are spending time in that there is an official investigation underway. Send an email about this or ask the managers in charge to inform their staff.

Company employees who do not need to be present during the search may leave the company.

Also tell them the following:

• The officials must not be disturbed in their work under any circumstances. Resisting the officials or obstructing their work in any way can lead to severe penalties (fines or arrest).
• Company employees must not destroy or hide documents or delete emails under any circumstances.
• Company employees should speak to their supervisors or the main contact regarding all questions about the investigation. This applies even if company employees are approached by the competition authority officials.
• The fact that the investigation is being conducted must be kept confidential. In particular, no outsiders may be informed (such as customers, competitors, the press, family or other third parties).

Need for shadowing

Officials are permitted to search the rooms and items specified in the search warrant. The officials may and should be shadowed during the whole search by employees from the company. Form a team to do this (→ 2. Further action to take at the start of the search)

Tasks for team members

The team members have the following tasks:

• Every competition authority official is to be shadowed by one team member during the whole search.
• The team members are to record all actions taken by the officials. This includes: Which rooms are entered? Which documents do they check and take with them? What questions do they ask? What answers are they given?
• The team members will lead the officials to the rooms and present them with the documents they request.
• Regarding questions about the contents of documents or other questions about the facts examined, the team members will refer the officials to the main contact at your company.
• The team members will make sure the officials can do their work undisturbed. Under no circumstances may the officials be obstructed, documents removed, data deleted or third parties warned. Any obstruction of the competition authority officials’ work may lead to severe penalties for the company and the people doing so (such as fines or arrest).

The company must give the officials access to all rooms, real property and means of transport and present all documents they ask for. That also means unlocking a cupboard for the officials or providing the password to an electronic account on request so the officials can check the contents.

It is also advantageous to tell the officials where documents relevant to the search warrant are as this can minimise the risk of their confiscating a wide range of documents and chance finds.

Company rooms, vehicles and documents

The following premises, items and people may generally be searched by the officials:

• All rooms listed in the search warrant (company, address)
• Desks, cupboards, file archives
• Business records such as files, correspondence, memos, diaries, accounting documents, travel expense reports
• Electronic documents such as emails, presentations, Excel files, Word documents
• Company vehicles (even if partly for personal use)
• Briefcases, laptops, calendars, address books, mobile phones
• Data on company servers
• Personal devices in the company that are also used for business purposes (“bring your own device”)

Private homes and real property

Only if this is expressly stated in the search warrant may the officials search private homes or real property or other personal property located outside the company’s premises.

Items outside the scope of the search warrant

The competition authority officials are only allowed to search for documents that fall within the scope of their search warrant. However, if the competition authority officials come across a document by chance during the search which indicates another breach of competition law (“chance find”), they may seize this document.

The competition authority officials are not permitted to search any rooms or items not listed in the search warrant (e.g. cars that are not parked on the company’s premises). However, if there is an “imminent danger”, they can expand their search to such rooms or items.

Correspondence with external lawyers (defence documents)

German law protects the confidentiality of communications between an accused and his or her lawyer. Competition authority officials are therefore not allowed to access certain “defence documents”. However, this protection is subject to strict conditions:

• The correspondence must be with an authorised external lawyer.
• The lawyer is currently advising the company being searched.
• The documents were created for the purpose of defending the company after a preliminary investigation had been initiated or in connection with it.

Correspondence with the in-house legal department can be searched and removed by officials as can correspondence with external lawyers (such as lawyers from other group companies) and any legal correspondence not related to defence in a preliminary investigation.

If in doubt, ask your legal department or legal counsel whether a document is privileged.

Note that officials have the right to conduct a “cursory review” to determine if documents are actually privileged. If the officials insist on the documents being handed over to them, ask for the documents to be kept separate from other documents and sealed in an envelope until a court rules on the matter.

Data search as the focus of the investigation

The search for electronic documents is extremely important in practice and virtually always forms the focus of a search. The officials will demand access to all data carriers which can be attributed to the accused, persons concerned or witnesses. These include computer hard drives, mobile phones, email accounts and network folders. Back-ups are included if there are any.

Competition authorities are entitled to full access to all IT data

You must give competition authority officials access to your company’s data. This includes explaining the set-up and structure of the IT system, handing over the required passwords, allowing access to user accounts etc. Please note that if officials are unable to access the data, they can also confiscate the relevant devices and storage media (computers, servers). At the end of the day, we recommend cooperating with the officials so that this does not happen.

In practice the competition authority officials make copies of all data that can be allocated to the “target people”. The copied data is seized temporarily and taken to their office for review. There, forensic analysis software will be used to search the data for relevant terms (“e-search”). The documents filtered out are examined individually.

There is no legal time limit for when the data must be reviewed. In practice, it usually takes many months for the competition authority to complete its review of IT assets.

 

It sometimes happens that the officials ask for more documents than they can inspect in a single day. In such cases the documents are normally stored in a separate room on the company’s premises and the investigation is continued the next day. The storage room is then sealed off.

Make sure that nobody tries to gain access to the room after sealing, as breaking the seal can lead to a fine. Clear warnings should be posted and, if necessary, an employee should be assigned to ensure no one tries to enter the room and tamper with the seal (e.g. cleaning staff). Simply locking the door is not enough.

Take photos of the seal and the opening of the seal by the officials so you can prove later that the seal has not been tampered with or altered.

Seizure by the competition authority

Competition authority officials are entitled to seize any items that could be significant as evidence in their investigation, i.e. take custody of the items and take them to their office. Officials are also entitled to remove digital storage devices (e.g. hard drives, USB sticks, CD-ROMs, mobile phones), especially if they cannot copy the data on them on site. Officials should therefore also be granted access to the data so as to avoid having them seize the devices.

Make copies for the company, if possible

As it can take many months to analyse the documents and data storage devices seized, you should try to make copies of the most important documents for your day-to-day business. But note that the officials do not have to allow you to copy documents. Nevertheless, a cooperative approach during the search often results in investigators allowing the copying of specific documents provided this does not delay the search process.

Important: refuse to consent to seizure

Although competition authority officials are entitled to remove evidence, this does not mean that you have to consent to its seizure. You should insist on the formal confiscation of evidence so that your company does not lose any defence options available to it. The search report that is completed at the end of the search includes a box to tick for this purpose.

Personal particulars

You must give your personal particulars. This includes your first name, last name and maiden name, place and date of birth, marital status, address and nationality. Failing to comply can result in a fine.

Information on evidence and the facts under investigation

Competition authority officials are entitled to request the following information from company employees and to record their answers. They must, however, tell the employees explicitly that they have a legal duty to cooperate:

• Information that could provide access to evidence
• Explanations of facts or documents that could be related to the subject matter and purpose of the search.
• The answers given must be correct and complete. Failure to answer correctly and completely may result in a fine being imposed on the person questioned.

Limits on the duty to provide information

Where competition authority officials conduct a regulatory search, company employees are generally obliged to provide the above information. However, they may refuse to provide information if, by providing it, they could expose themselves or their relatives to criminal or administrative prosecution. However, this does not apply if there is only a risk of prosecution in regulatory proceedings by the competition authority and the competition authority promises the person questioned that he or she will not be prosecuted for the offence in question. Ask for a written non-prosecution assurance.

(During searches that are conducted as part of administrative proceedings, company employees may also have to disclose information that could lead to prosecution for a criminal or administrative offence. However, this information may not be used in criminal or administrative proceedings against the person questioned or one of their relatives against their will.)

Seek legal advice!

In an exceptional situation, such as a search, it is easy to try and give explanations without having thought about them carefully. Therefore, if possible, try to avoid making comments on the case:

• You can answer questions related to the search process, such as the location of documents or the company’s structure (e.g. abbreviations of names, internal company abbreviations, position of a person in the company), briefly, factually and precisely. If you are unsure how to answer a question, do not speculate. Say instead: “I don’t know”.
• Tell the officials that you are willing to answer other questions in writing. Make a note of the specific questions. Consult with your legal counsel before responding.
• If the officials insist on questioning someone formally, it is crucial that you ask to have a legal counsel present. This is because the distinction between admissible questions and those that you do not have to answer is very difficult to draw in individual cases.
• If they question someone formally, the competition authority officials have to make a record of it. You should review this record afterwards to make sure that it is accurate.

Raid report and list of items seized

During the closing meeting, the competition authority’s officials will give you a raid report and a list of items seized and, if there are any, records of the questioning (→ 9. Questioning by the competition authority).

Compare the lists you receive from the competition authority with your own records. If you notice any discrepancies, bring them to the officials’ attention and request corrections.

Insist on formal confiscation

If you have not already done so, state expressly that the documents and objects seized are being formally confiscated and that you do not consent to handing them over voluntarily. Make sure that this is recorded in the raid report (→ 8. Seizure and confiscation of evidence). Once the search has been completed, speak to your legal counsel to decide whether you should lodge an objection to the confiscation.

Prepare an internal report

The company employees who were shadows during the search (→ 3. Shadowing the officials) should document the process in an internal report immediately after the competition authority’s officials have left.

Organising a defence and preparing a press statement

After the search, you should evaluate whether it would be reasonable to seek a judicial review and plan your company’s subsequent defence strategy.

Prepare a statement for potential press enquiries. Also, anticipate questions from your customers, business partners and company employees, and prepare responses. Make sure the wording of all statements is coordinated with your legal counsel.