The European Commission (EC) announced a series of unannounced inspections at the sites of companies involved in the construction of data centers. According to Datacenter Dynamics, the commission additionally sent formal requests to businesses to provide information that could shed light on possible cartel agreements.
Representatives of European authorities fear that companies may have agreed to enter into secret agreements stipulating the inadmissibility of poaching employees. In addition, agreements on establishing wages and other working conditions are not excluded. The European Commission does not disclose the names of the companies subject to inspections. Moreover, it is emphasized that preliminary checks do not necessarily mean that companies are definitely guilty of collusion.
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The raids on the companies were carried out in cooperation with the national antimonopoly departments of the European Union, but for now even information about which countries are being inspected is kept secret. Nothing is known about the time limit for the investigation, so there is no information about the duration of further raids, as well as how long it will take for new requests to be sent to the companies.
Representatives of the EU authorities said that any companies associated with cartel conspiracies can ease their fate by receiving immunity from fines or their significant reduction if they themselves report such conspiracies and cooperate with representatives of the European Commission during the investigation.
Not only companies, but also individuals have the opportunity to fulfill their civic duty. A special tool, the Whistleblower Tool, allows you to anonymously send encrypted messages to regulatory authorities to those wishing to become informants of the European Commission.
Company employees and other interested parties with knowledge of cartels and informal agreements related to preventing the poaching of employees or wage collusion can anonymously report violations to the authorities.
But while business is able to agree on some issues, there remains constant confrontation on others. At the end of September, Google Cloud filed a complaint with the European Commission about Microsoft’s anti-competitive licensing practices, and in October news emerged that the Open Cloud Coalition group would promote openness in the cloud market – Microsoft has already called it “an artificial turf created by Google.”