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.

Pursuant to Article 47 of the Law on Competition Protection, the Commission for the Protection of Competition conducted a sectoral analysis of the state of competition on the market of digital platforms for mediation in the sale and delivery of mainly restaurant food and other products in the period 2020-2021.

The subject of the analysis was determining the relationship between competitors on the market of digital platforms for mediation in the sale and delivery of mainly restaurant food and other products, which included the analysis of the regulatory framework, assessment of market shares, analysis of contractual relations and commercial policies of market participants.

The main goal of the analysis was to review and analyze the state of competition on the market in question and point out potential problems in terms of limiting or any other type of infringement or prevention of competition.

An integral part of the Report on the sectoral analysis of the state of competition in the market of digital platforms for mediating the sale and delivery of mainly restaurant food and other products consists of conclusions and recommendations.

The Commission would like to thank all market participants who provided the requested information in the course of the analysis.

The Commission for Protection of Competition has launched an ex officio investigation of a competition infringement against the company VAILLANT doo from Belgrade, a distributor of heating equipment of the “Vaillant” and “Protherm” brands, due to the reasonable assumption that the said company determines the resale prices of the said brands in the Republic Serbia, and carried out a dawn raid on 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 to the prices from the price list available on the website of Vaillant. At the same time, 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 a competition infringement, in the sense of Article 10 of the Law, in the form of a prohibited restrictive agreement, by which the company Vaillant determines the resale prices of the products of the “Vaillant” and “Protherm” brands, i.e. to its distributors. All persons who possess data, documents or other relevant information which may contribute to establishing the facts of this case are hereby invited to submit them at the address of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Savska 25 / IV, Belgrade.