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The fight against anticompetitive practices led by competition authorities has been characterized over recent years by the dismantling of large-scale cartels, which generated intense media interest because of the very large fines imposed on the operators, exceeding in certain cases one billion euros. These spectacular outcomes were mainly obtained thanks to the application of leniency programs, which allow a company that confesses a cartel to the competition authority and cooperates in its dismantling to obtain a significant penalty reduction or even total immunity. The first leniency program was initiated by the Antitrust Division of the American Department of Justice (DoJ) in the late 1970s as a consequence of the focus of US competition policy on cartels. Based on Game Theory, this mechanism, which has proved successful against cartels, has been gradually imported by most competition authorities that are members of the European Competition Network, following EU law. Despite divergences among competition policies, leniency programs have now been established as the cornerstone of most antitrust policies. Nowadays, doctrinal debates mainly focus on the combination of leniency programs with criminal procedures and class action suits. Given their success in dismantling cartels, leniency programs have had a major impact on international trade, and they have become part of the business strategies of companies. Hence, companies, and multinationals in particular, have integrated leniency mechanisms and have developed strategies in order to protect themselves against competition risk. Furthermore, it is important to point out that some operators make use of this procedure as a Trojan horse to conquer new markets and even to obtain consequent financial compensations by taking advantage of class actions in the US. However, beyond these new commercial strategies, leniency programs have proved less effective. Their effectiveness depends mostly on the field of competition law in which they are applied. Moreover, the capacity of the competition authorities in developed countries to establish cooperation networks, exchange confidential information, and apply their own laws extraterritorially contrasts with the weak protection of the markets of developing countries. Hence, developing countries represent appropriate targets for export cartels initiated in foreign countries, which guarantee immunity to the venture. In addition to better coordination with civil and criminal procedures, the major challenge for leniency programs wishing to promote competitive markets in a context of globalization lies in the modernization of developing countries' competition laws and the strengthening of the cooperation mechanisms between competition authorities.