Dawn Raids Under Challenge : Due Process Aspects on the European Commission's Dawn Raid Practices

The 2nd edition of this book provides an updated comprehensive analysis of the European Commission's dawn raid practices from a due process perspective.

Examining the obligations imposed by the Charter and the ECHR and the response of the Luxembourg and Strasbourg Courts, the book shows that whereas the Strasbourg Court manages to strike a balance between efficiency concerns and fundamental rights, the approach of the EU Courts is not equally balanced.

The dawn raid is a powerful tool on which the European Commission relies heavily in its antitrust investigations. In 2022, the Commission carried out dawn raids in private homes for the first time in many years and it has declared its intent to make greater use of the power to inspect private premises. Furthermore, the European Commission is expanding its dawn raid practices into new areas of law. Both the Digital Markets Act and the Foreign Subsidies Regulation empower the Commission to carry out dawn raids and to impose heavy fines on anyone failing to cooperate. Ensuring adequate procedural safeguards is therefore more important than ever.

The book provides an essential and timely examination of this important subject, and is of great practical interest to companies, practitioners, and enforcers. It is also of theoretical interest, offering stimulating reflections on the effectiveness and legitimacy of the Commission's enforcement powers.

Helene Andersson is Counsel at Delphi, Sweden. With 25 years in the field, her experience and expertise span the whole range of competition law matters. She has assisted clients in setting up and managing compliance programmes, headed the work related to dawn raid inspections and cartel investigations, defended clients in cartel cases before the Swedish courts, assisted clients with merger filings before both the Swedish Competition Authority and the European Commission, etc.

Helene has a background in academia where she has worked as a researcher and lecturer. In her research, she has mainly focused on due process aspects of EU competition law enforcement. She teaches both EU and competition law at the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala, Sweden. She is also regularly invited to speak at national and international competition law conferences. Photo credit to Niklas Björling.