President of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Miloje Obradović, PhD, met with newly appointed Head of Economic Affairs Section of the USA Embassy to Serbia, Ms. Carolina Hidea, and her team.

President Obradović introduced collocutors to current issues from the filed of competition policy and Commission’s activities related to EU accession process.

The topic of conversation also included options for further strengthening of expert and educational support via competition policy related projects, organization of seminars, visiting lecturers, conferences, joint study programs on competition policy, etc.

Present at the meeting were Dragan Penezić, PhD, Secretary General of the Commission for Protetion of Competition, and Ms. Nina Vasić, Adviser at the Department for International and National Cooperation of the Commission for Protection of Competition.

Beginning October, a presentation titled Market Analysis of Aftersales Service (Aftermarkets) was held at the Commission for Protection of Competition’s premises. Representatives from the Commission for Protection of Competition, Public Policy Secretariat of the RS, PERFORM Project, in addition to research team members of the Institute for Economic Sciences participated in the meeting. The information on this activity was published on the PERFORM Project website as well.

The Commission for Protection of Competition is one of the PREFORM project beneficiaries. The PERFORM project, implemented by Helvetas Swiss Intercooparation SRB representative office, in cooperation with the Public Policy Secretariat of the Republic of Serbia, is implementing four pilot-projects aimed at straightening of evidence-based policy making.

Apart from that, the basic goal of the review on competition related implications on aftermarkets, including guarantees, customer service, turnover and the use of spare parts for motor vehicles and top selling home appliances, was to determine the structure and relations between main market actors, their market shares and relative power, aimed at detecting possible market deficiencies, i.e. presence of competition infringements conditions. The analysis developed a series of conclusions and recommendations that will be published on the website, following the concluding adoption procedure by the Commission’s Council.

During the meeting, all project partners praised the high quality of established collaboration during all project implementation phases and expressed their satisfaction with project related participation. The Commission’s representatives expressed their pleasure with achieved study’s results that provided answers to basic investigation tasks as defined by the project’s ToR.

The report on performed analysis will be published on the Commission’s webpage, taking into consideration undertakings request for protection of specific data. Apart from the call addressed to undertakings to submit their comments to the Commission, the Report will be forwarded to state institutions, identified as responsible for certain issues in the study (Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications, and Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure).

On the basis of analysis results, a regulation on the group exemption of vertical agreements in the motor vehicle sector will be drafted, thus transporting the EU Commission Regulation 461/2010 into our legislature. Apart from the said, additional investigation will be placed on observed cases that could limit, prevent or disturb the competition on specific markets. Following investigation of certain cases, it will be decided on the existence of a sufficient basis for initiation of competition infringement processes, or merely on drawing the attention of undertakings to certain rules in the context of competition policy.

PERFORM Program Officer Svetlana Kijevcanin announced a conference that will be held in early December where the operational model of all pilot projects will be presented together with the results of all four research studies.

PERFORM website link for related news published in English:

http://www.perform.network/en/news-and-events/43_research-results-on-market-analyses-of-aftersales-services/