Here’s one, possible, good reason: the EU has a sort of “whistleblower” defense, where the first company to cooperate in a cartel investigation gets off free. A

Here’s one, possible, good reason: the EU has a sort of “whistleblower” defense, where the first company to cooperate in a cartel investigation gets off free. Assuming that bad PR is a significant part of punishment in these cases, it would make sense to delay announcing the culprits here to give one of them time to escape being named.