The European Commission has offered new temptations to whistleblowers to expose what it denounced as a scourge of corporate cartels illegally driving up prices in Europe.
Under the plan, adopted by the EU's executive and relaxing rules in place since 1996, informants can win immunity from fines by being the first to confess involvement in a price-fixing scam.
"The new policy will create even greater incentives to denounce this scourge of the economy which has companies making illicit profits at consumers' expense," EU Competition Commissioner Mr Mario Monti said in a statement.
The European Commission, which fined 56 groups ranging from vitamin producers to post offices a record 1.84 billion euros ($1.61 billion) in 10 cartel cases in 2001, said the new rules would take effect from Thursday.
The Commission even published a dedicated fax number in Belgium - +322 299 45 85 - to lure anyone wanting to inform on cartel co-conspirators.
EU rules allow only fines and stop short of US laws, for instance, under which taking part in a cartel is a crime punishable by long jail terms.
The Commission said it was dropping a demand under the 1996 rules that a whistleblower has to provide decisive information to qualify for leniency and was abandoning a rule that the instigator of a cartel cannot qualify.
Under the new rules, the first firm confessing involvement in a cartel would get full immunity if its information enabled the Commission to launch a dawn raid, a first step towards catching a cartel.