During an unannounced inspection conducted by the Commission, inspectors requested access to the mobile phones of several IFF employees. In the course of the inspection, the Commission detected that a senior employee had deleted WhatsApp messages exchanged with a competitor that contained business-related information.

​

The deletion took place after the employee had been informed of the Commission’s inspection. After the conduct was detected, IFF immediately acknowledged the facts and cooperated with the Commission during and after the inspection, helping to recover the deleted data.

 

As a result, proceedings were initiated against IFF for obstruction of the investigation. Because IFF engaged in a cooperation procedure, acknowledging its liability and accepting the maximum fine applicable for the obstruction, the Commission reduced the amount of the fine, taking the company’s cooperation into account as a mitigating circumstance.

 

In accordance with Regulation No 1/2003, the Commission may impose fines of up to 1% of an undertaking’s total turnover on companies that intentionally or negligently obstruct an antitrust investigation.

 

The Commission concluded that an overall fine of 0.3% of IFF’s total turnover would be both proportionate and deterrent. At the same time, the Commission decided to reward IFF for its cooperation during and after the inspection. Consequently, the Commission reduced the fine by 50% and imposed a fine of €15.9 million, representing 0.15% of IFF’s total turnover.

 

This is the first Commission decision imposing a fine for the deletion of messages sent via social media applications (WhatsApp) on a mobile phone.

 

The investigation in which the inspection took place has not yet been concluded.

 

Inspectors are empowered to examine and make copies of business records and documents, regardless of the medium on which they are stored. The Commission’s/Competition Council’s inspection teams include IT experts who use state-of-the-art tools to detect any deletion or manipulation of electronic information during inspections.

 

Compliance with the authority’s requests in antitrust investigations is of paramount importance. Companies subject to an inspection must ensure that employees do not delete or manipulate any business-related documents, including communications on mobile phones. Today’s decision to fine IFF shows that we will not tolerate any action that could undermine the effectiveness of our investigations, and that we will firmly pursue and sanction any such obstruction.
— Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy