Dawn Raids are unannounced inspections at premises linked to the business under investigation, carried out by competition regulators to gather evidence for investigations. The rise of hybrid and remote work means that a good deal of business is outside the traditional office environment.
In this new post-pandemic world, inspectors ringing your doorbell are replacing the familiar scenes of documents and hard drives ferried out of a corporate office.
When a breach of competition law is suspected, regulators may conduct unannounced inspections to gather evidence. Although historically, they would take place early in the morning - ensuring an element of surprise, hence the phrase 'Dawn Raid' - they now tend to occur during the day's first working hour.
Raids are often coordinated across multiple locations and sometimes across different countries. They may target companies' corporate offices, suppliers, competitors, and even employees' places of residence - wherever the competition authority believes that evidence may be stored.