During the last year, the Commission for Protection of Competition has conducted the Sector Inquiry on Competition Issues in Aftermarkets (Serbian version only). These markets encompass, inter alia, provision of guarantees, repair services, turnover and use of spare parts for motor vehicles and best-selling home appliances – refrigerators and washing machines.
The main goal of this inquiry was to establish the structure and relations between undertakings, their market shares and market power, with the objective of detecting potential market vulnerabilities, that is, existence of conditions leading to the infringement of competition.

Since the adoption of this document and introduction of the general public with its findings, the Commission has been intensively involved in additional reviewing of this document, in the context of existence of potential competition infringements effected by undertakings operating in these sectors.

To this effect, the Commission came to certain findings that necessary may not mean that particular acts performed on these markets by a part of undertakings are considered to be prohibited, but that may pose a threat to competitive behavior and present endangerment of equivalence of all undertakings on the said markets.

The Commission formulated derived findings in the following documents – Information of Findings and Positions of the Commission regarding the Motor Vehicles Aftermarkets Inquiry, and Information of Findings and Positions of the Commission regarding the Home Appliances Aftermarkets Inquiry.

In these documents, the Commission has in more details elaborated on particular elements of business operations performed on the part of undertakings operating in the motor vehicles and home appliances aftermarkets, and expressed the concern due to the specific segments of contractual relations between undertakings that may indicate to potential competition infringements.

The Commission forwarded these findings to competent state authorities, business associations, as well as undertakings operating in the motor vehicles and home appliances aftermarkets, in order to forewarn them of the possibility of becoming the subject of the Commission’s proceedings in the case of failing to amend certain segments of agreements arranged with their suppliers or dealers.