The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, at the Second Extraordinary Session of the Thirteenth legislature, adopted the Annual Activity Report of the Commission for the Protection of Competition for the year 2021 together with the Proposal for the conclusion of the Committee for Economy, Regional Development, Trade, Tourism and Energy as of November 4, 2022.
An overview of the Commission’s most important activities includes procedures for determining competition infringements; exemptions of restrictive agreements from prohibition, merger examination procedures; implementation of sectoral and analysis of competition conditions on individual markets, giving opinions, activities of the Commission in the EU accession process related to chapter 8; promotion of competition protection rules to the public; domestic and international cooperation, including the Commission’s activities on international projects.
Representatives of the Commission took part in a round table organized as part of the Jean Monnet Competition Law Center of Excellence project regarding the latest developments in the field of competition law and policy in the European Union and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (” Recent developments in Competition Law and Policy in EU and CEE Countries: Open issues and Challenges“) at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce.
The round table presented experiences and challenges in the areas of competition protection and control of state aid in Croatia, Serbia, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania, with the presence of over 50 representatives of banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and the academic community.
The Commission for the Protection of Competition has launched an ex officio competition infringement investigation against the company VAILLANT doo from Belgrade, a distributor of heating equipment of the “Vaillant” and “Protherm” brands, due to the well-founded suspicion that the said company determines the prices of the said brands for resale in the Republic Serbia, and carried out a dawn raid at its premises.
The Commission compared the wholesale and retail prices from the price list of Vaillant with the retail prices displayed on the websites of certain authorized distributors and determined that they are identical, both among all of the observed retailers, and against the prices from the price list available on the website of Vaillant. Moreover, based on the available data, the company Vaillant is not present on the retail market of products of the “Vaillant” and “Protherm” brands, but only through its distributors.
Based on the analysis and evaluation of the collected data, the Commission reasonably assumed the existence of competition infringement, in the sense of Article 10 of the Law, in the form of an illegal restrictive agreement, by which the company Vaillant determines the prices of the products of the “Vaillant” and “Protherm” brands for resale, i.e. to its distributors.
All persons having data, documents or other relevant information that can contribute to establishing the factual situation in this procedure are hereby invited to submit them at the address of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Savska 25 / IV, Belgrade.
As part of the continuation of the cooperation of the Commission for the Protection of Competition with the Serbian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCC), on spreading awareness of the need to harmonize business operations with regulations on competition protection, on the website of the Chamber, Business in accordance with the rules of competition, Guidelines for the preparation of the business compliance program with the regulations on competition protection are available, as well as the Model of the business compliance program with the regulations on competition protection that follows the Guidelines.
In addition to the Guidelines and Models, there are lists for identifying illegal conduct, brochures in pdf format, presentations used at workshops in cooperation with the Chamber in the course of 2022, as well as educational video materials aimed at familiarizing market participants with the rules of competition protection. Such availability of materials should enable market participants to assess and reduce their exposure to the risks of violations of the Law on Protection of Competition in their operations.
The past practice of the Commission shows that competition violations often occur due to lack or insufficient knowledge of market participants. Therefore, the need to raise the level of awareness among market participants about the necessity and ways to comply one’s business with regulations in the field of competition protection, was recognized.
The Commission for the Protection of Competition participated in the 21st annual conference “Global Forum on Competition”, which is traditionally organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), at its headquarters in Paris.
Officials from around 110 competition protection authorities and international organizations were invited to this year’s conference, and the topics were: “Goals of competition policy”, “Subsidies, competition and trade”, “Interaction between competition protection bodies and sector regulators” and “Remedies and commitments in cases of abuse of a dominant position”.
In the introductory part of the conference, the participants of the meeting were addressed by high-ranking officials of international organizations, namely the general secretaries of the OECD and UNCTAD, Mathias Cormann and Rebeca Grynspan, the executive vice-president and commissioner for competition of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager, the chairman of the OECD Committee on Competition, Frédéric Jenny and Director of the OECD Directorate for Financial and Business Affairs, Carmine di Noia.
On the second day, during the panel, representatives of the Commission gave a presentation related to the previously submitted written contribution and the Commission’s relationship with national sector regulators.
The conference represented a good way of connecting the Commission with representatives of competition protection authorities from all over the world, then, actualizing contacts with competition protection authorities from the region during the coronavirus pandemic aftermath and finally, direct representation of the Commission in the international arena.
