Directors who are unaware that their company is failing to comply with Competition Law could still be disqualified from acting as a director if they would have known about the offence if they had been diligent enough to find out, warns updated guidance published by the Competition and Markets Authority.

Directors who are caught breaking Competition Law can be disqualified from acting as a director of any company, or carrying out other specified roles. Knowing about illegal practices but failing to take steps to stop them could also be grounds for disqualification.

‘Advice for company directors on avoiding disqualification’ links to a 60 second summary of the updated advice and a slightly longer HTML version. Both include

• a list of the actions that directors need to take

• questions that can asked to test a company’s compliance

• actions to encourage and facilitate reporting of concerns about cartels or other competition law concerns

• a link to further information about the CMA’s leniency programme