The Commission for the Protection of Competition has adopted Guidelines providing further clarification of the concept of protected data, prescribing the form and content of requests for data protection, and establishing the manner in which protected data are to be redacted from documents published in proceedings concerning the determination of unfair trading practices.

Protected data comprise trade secrets, commercially sensitive information, and confidential information.

In addition to other types of information, commercially sensitive information may include information that could enable the identification of the initiator or of third parties where there are legitimate grounds for maintaining their anonymity.

Confidential information includes information concerning the identity of interested parties, initiators, parties cooperating in the proceedings, and other persons providing information at the Commission’s request (sources of information), as well as other persons responding to the Commission’s requests, orders or notices, where the disclosure of their identity could result in significant harm to those persons.

These Guidelines shall enter into force on 8 August 2026, on the eighth day following their publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia.

These Guidelines further specify the manner in which the Commission for the Protection of Competition determines significant bargaining power.

In order to facilitate its application and ensure legal certainty, the Law on Trading Practices for Certain Types of Products establishes a presumption of significant bargaining power on the part of the buyer based on the objective criterion of financial strength, namely the amount of annual turnover.

Significant bargaining power refers to the ability of one contracting party to impose its terms on the other, arising from an imbalance in their respective economic positions.

A buyer is presumed to have significant bargaining power where its turnover substantially exceeds that of the supplier (e.g. where the supplier’s annual turnover is up to EUR 2 million, while the buyer’s exceeds EUR 2 million). This objective economic criterion alleviates the supplier’s evidentiary burden, while not precluding the possibility of establishing significant bargaining power in other circumstances, thereby ensuring a balance between legal certainty and substantive fairness.

When assessing significant bargaining power, due consideration will be given, among other factors, to the parties’ patterns of contractual conduct, in particular: which party initiates amendments to the contractual terms; whether one party accepts terms without negotiation; which party has, in practice, borne financial concessions without corresponding compensation; as well as the history of negotiations, the amount and frequency of payments or fees under the contractual relationship in question, and under comparable contractual arrangements between the buyer and other suppliers.

These Guidelines shall enter into force on 18 July 2026, on the eighth day following their publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia.

The Council of the Commission for the Protection of Competition has adopted Guidelines providing further detail on unfair trading practices. These Guidelines establish the framework by which the Commission for the Protection of Competition assesses unfair trading practices, including those set out on the “black list” under Article 6 of the Law, the “grey list” under Article 7 of the Law, as well as prohibited commercial retaliation.

The purpose of these Guidelines is to ensure the consistent application of the Law on Trading Practices for Certain Types of Products, with a view to fostering fair, transparent and predictable business relationships throughout the supply chain for agricultural and food products, as well as products of strategic importance for market supply, through the prevention, detection and sanctioning of unfair trading practices.

These Guidelines shall enter into force on 4 July 2026, on the eighth day following their publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia.

Upon entry into force of the Law on Trade Practices for Certain Types of Products (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia No. 35) on 1 May 2026, the Commission for Protection of Competition, as an autonomous and independent authority, shall also exercise the public powers in accordance with this Law, in addition to the competences conferred to it under the Law on Protection of Competition (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia Nos. 51/2009, 95/2013 and 35/2026 – other law).

The main objective of the Law on Trade Practices for Certain Types of Products is to ensure fair, transparent, and predictable business relations within the supply chain of agricultural and food products, as well as products of strategic importance for market supply, through the prevention, detection, and sanctioning of unfair trade practices.

Application:

This Law shall apply directly to relations between suppliers and buyers engaged in trade within the territory of the Republic of Serbia, namely:
1) agricultural and food products;
2) products of particular importance for market supply — for consumer supply, including household chemical products, paper and kitchen goods, personal hygiene and cosmetic products, and diapers; and for agricultural production, including plant nutrition and protection products, as well as soil improvers.

This Law shall apply directly to commercial relations between professional suppliers and buyers within the territory of the Republic of Serbia, with a clearly defined subject-matter scope. By its nature, this Law shall not apply to relations with consumers (B2C), but shall be exclusively directed at regulating business-to-business (B2B) relations between professional undertakings.

In such context, the term “supplier” shall refer to any agricultural producer, whether a natural or legal person, including their organisations or associations, who sells agricultural and food products, as well as any producer, importer, or distributor of products of particular importance for market supply.

On the other hand, the term ‘buyer’ shall refer to any legal entity or entrepreneur that, in the course of its business activities, purchases such products for further sale, processing, or distribution.

Deadlines:

Each entity in the supply chain of products covered by this Law shall be required to bring its general business terms and conditions, contracts, internal guidelines and practices into compliance with the provisions of this Law within four months from the date of its entry into force.

The by-laws required for the implementation of this Law shall be adopted within 30 days from its entry into force.

At its session of 19 March 2026, the Government adopted four new regulations governing the exemption of certain agreements from the prohibition of restrictive agreements, namely:

- Regulation on categories of vertical agreements exempted from the prohibition of restrictive agreements;
– Regulation on categories of vertical agreements in the motor vehicle sector exempted from the prohibition of restrictive agreements;
- Regulation on categories of technology transfer agreements exempted from the prohibition of restrictive agreements;
- Regulation on categories of agreements in the railway and road transport sector exempted from the prohibition of restrictive agreements.

These Regulations entered into force on 28 March 2026.

Upon the entry into force of the Regulation on categories of vertical agreements exempted from the prohibition of restrictive agreements, the Regulation on agreements between undertakings operating at different levels of production or distribution exempted from the prohibition (“Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia”, No. 11/10) ceased to apply.

The transitional provisions of the Regulation on categories of vertical agreements exempted from the prohibition of restrictive agreements provide that: “Exemption from the prohibition of vertical agreements concluded prior to the entry into force of this Regulation, which fulfilled the conditions prescribed by the Regulation on agreements between undertakings operating at different levels of production or distribution exempted from the prohibition (“Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia”, No. 11/10), but which do not meet the conditions prescribed by this Regulation, shall apply for six months from the date of entry into force of this Regulation.”

Vertical agreements concluded prior to the date of entry into force of this Regulation shall be aligned with the provisions of this Regulation within six months from the date of its entry into force.”

In ex officio proceedings concerning an alleged infringement of competition law by Vaillant d.o.o., Belgrade, the Commission for Protection of Competition found that the company had concluded restrictive agreements having as their object the significant restriction, distortion and prevention of competition within the meaning of Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition. Accordingly, the Commission imposed a competition protection measure amounting to RSD 15,569,280.00.

On 19 January 2023, the Commission for Protection of Competition opened ex officio infringement proceedings against Vaillant d.o.o., Belgrade, a distributor of heating equipment under the “Vaillant” and “Protherm” brands, on the basis of a reasonable suspicion that the undertaking had imposed resale prices for those products in the Republic of Serbia, thereby engaging in resale price maintenance (RPM). The Commission also carried out a dawn raid at the undertaking’s business premises.

Prior to initiating the proceedings, 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.

The Commission found that, since 2017, Vaillant had operated a business model based on the wholesale distribution of Vaillant and Protherm branded products to its distributors under identical or substantially similar terms and conditions. The distributors were periodically supplied with identical price lists specifying wholesale and retail prices, which they were expected to implement and pass on to their downstream customers throughout the distribution network. In addition, they received a rebate policy prescribing the discount structure to be adhered to by the distributors and all other members of the distribution network. Under the rebate policy, discount rates differed depending on the product type, the brand in question, and the customer segment. The evidence showed that Vaillant actively enforced and monitored the consistent application of prices for Vaillant and Protherm products. Vaillant concluded separate agreements with retailers and installers in its distribution network for alleged market-development services. Pursuant to those agreements, it provided financial incentives once the recipients submitted invoices from which the resale prices of the products could be ascertained. Conversely, Vaillant refrained from paying incentives that traders had come to expect in cases where they deviated from its pricing policy, even where the agreed sales volumes had been met, thereby rendering the withholding of such incentives a punitive measure.

The core of this type of infringement is that a supplier of a product restricts its buyer (and/or other buyers within the distribution network, including retailers) from independently and freely setting resale prices in downstream sales. This substantially restricts competition between retailers of the same brand, removes the possibility of retail price competition, and thereby prevents price reductions at the retail level, to the detriment of consumers.