Ms Clare McNamara:

I thank the Deputy and I will work backwards through his questions. With regard to other offences, the CCPC and ComReg had the opportunity while the ECN+ directive was being negotiated to come to us with a wish list, in particular of the type of offences it wanted us to examine if we were going to do this by primary legislation. The two areas it came to us with were bid rigging and gun jumping. We are dealing with both of these in the Bill. Gun jumping is where somebody goes ahead with a merger without waiting for the approval of the competition authority, and I already covered bid rigging in answering Deputy O'Reilly's questions. They are the only issues the CCPC and ComReg asked us for with regard to specific offences. This is not to say we are not always looking at developments in the area.

This brings me on to the question about data sharing and ownership in the digital world. This particular Bill will not necessarily deal with abuse of dominance in these areas but it is worth noting developments are already taking place at EU level. The Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act are looking at this area of data, online content and gatekeepers.

There will be further legislation coming down the tracks in transposing EU legislation in this area. Competition law is constantly evolving and the Deputy is absolutely right that there can be abuse of dominance in different areas. The legislation being considered now concerns the dominance of the key market gatekeepers, to use the term in EU legislation, in terms of market dominance. I will not name any players in the area and members could guess who is being referred to by the European Commission.

In terms of the burden of proof, the issue we have had up to now is that the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and ComReg have required the criminal burden of proof in order to be able to take criminal cases. Whereas cartel behaviour will always be considered criminal behaviour, the criminal burden of proof is required now but in taking a civil case all that results is a slap on the wrist for the undertaking, so there will be a lower burden of proof. It will not be of the criminal level that is now required. There will be significant fines in comparison with the type of fines applied even in criminal cases now where there has traditionally been a lower level of fines.

There will be a lower burden of proof with higher fines. How that interacts with the criminal system or regime is something we will focus on with drafting in order to ensure the interplay between the two is dealt with.