The President of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Miloje Obradović, PhD, met with the delegation of the Embassy of Japan, headed by the First Secretary at the Embassy, Mr. Kanno Yoshifumi.

President Obradović introduced collocutors with current issues related to competition policy, and Commission’s activities within the EU accession process.

Also, the topic of conversation was placed on the analysis of the state of competition and competition-related protection measures in Japan and Serbia, possibilities of bilateral cooperation and joint activities through operating in international organizations dealing with the competition law and policy, as well as the support of further projects of Japan in which the Commission for Protection of Competition takes active involvement.

The President of the Commission expressed gratitude to the Japanese officials for support and assistance to Commission’s operating provided so far, implemented via projects for strengthening capacities of the Commission for Protection of Competition.

The Secretary General of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Dragan Penezić, PhD, and Ms. Nina Vasić, Adviser at the Department for International and Domestic Cooperation of the Commission for Protection of Competition, also attended the meeting.

Siniša Milošević, PhD, Chief Economist of the Commission for Protection of Competition, held a lecture for students of the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade. During the lecture, Dr Milošević introduced students with the Commission for Protection of Competition’s mandate, as well as the legal framework based on which the competition protection policy in Serbia is conducted.

During the lecture, Dr Milošević presented students with several international cases of detecting competition infringement and introduced them with the basis of competition protection policy.

President of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Miloje Obradović, PhD, and Head of the Department for Economic Analysis, Siniša Milošević, PhD, attended the American Chamber of Commerce formal celebration of 15 years of operations in Serbia.

The event gathered representatives of member companies, state institutions, corps diplomatique, the media and other significant partners who have by attending supported the continuous work of the AmCham in promoting competition, transparency and free entrepreneurship as doing business key values.

The Commission for Protection of Competition supports operations of all business associations in Serbia and encourages their education-related efforts and operations that contribute creating equal business conditions on the market of our country.

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/

This year as well, the International Competition Network organized its 13th annual workshop dedicated to the enhancement of knowledge on cartel detection, the ICN Cartel Workshop, held in Madrid, Spain.

The host of this year’s four-day workshop, dedicated to the additional training of competition infringements experts, is Spanish competition authority – Comision nacional de los mercados y la competencia.

Experts from the Department for Competition Infringement, Mr. Vladimir Antonijević and Ms. Marija Kovačević, represented the Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition at this event.

During the workshop, the discussion is focused on strategies for cartel detection and investigation, introduction to available tools for deterrence, as well as on cooperation between different competition authorities in the domain of cartel detection and prevention.

As in previous years, lecturers are the EU Commission’s cartel detection experts, in addition to experts coming from countries with multiannual experience and practice in detecting numerous types of competition infringements.

In addition to competition authorities, the workshop is intended for participation of NGO experts.

The Commission for Protection of Competition’s delegation consisted of the Commission for Protection of Competition’s Council member, Marko Obradović, and Senior adviser in the Department for investigation of concentration, Gordana Lukić, following invitation sent by the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation, attended “The Russian Competition Week” held in Moscow.

The motto of this manifestation, as well as the plenary session’s topic was “New reality. New challenges. New competition policy”.

On the sidelines of this three-day conference, the Commission’s delegation also had a bilateral meeting with the Vice-President of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation, Anatoly Golomolzin, on the improvement of relations and cooperation between the Serbian and Russian competition authorities.

The Commission for Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia and the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation have signed an Agreement on cooperation in 2012, which was followed by a series of joint activities that have considerably influenced the improvement of the Commission’s operations.

Based on the Agreement, the FAS training center in Kazan held seminars and training events participated by many employees from the Commission’s administrative and professional services, alongside the organization of the last year’s study visit and a visit of Russian colleagues to Serbia.

The Commission for Protection of Competition hosted traditional, prestigious seminar of the OECD Regional Center for Competition, headquartered in Budapest. The topic of this gathering, as per initiative of the Serbian Commission as a host, was how to enhance competition culture, competition policy advocacy, and estimate on competition policy’s effectiveness in the SEE region.

The conference was opened by the President of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Miloje Obradović, PhD, while main panelists were Sabine Zigelski, OECD Senior competition expert, Šarunas Keserauskas, Chairman of the Competition Council of the Republic of Lithuania, and Kay Weidner, Spokesman for Germany’s Federal Cartel Office.

The President of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Miloje Obradović, PhD, emphasized that among state institution, business and expert public representatives, the judiciary and consumers themselves, still exists an insufficient level of knowledge on the importance of competition legislation.

“I believe that topic on how to develop a competition culture is in common for all regional bodies in the majority of countries that either went, or are still going through a transition. Famous Cambridge sociologist, Ralf Dahrendorf, explained the situation of countries that had a discontinuity in a market economy with a sentence that is very illustrative of the issues we are facing as well: “Transitional countries can change government in six days, enact laws in six months, build institutions in six years, but for a change in the manners of citizens’ thinking and acting – it will take sixty years”.

President Obradovic said that he believes there is a significant room for improvement in this segment of protection of competition bodies’ operations, but that he is not dissatisfied with the results, especially having in mind the fact that this topic has not always been set as a priority.

During the first and second day of the seminar, methods implemented by competition authorities aimed at improvement of competition culture were presented, hypothetical case of presenting to the media competition protection measures imposed on cartel participants was analyzed, as well as effects of the campaigns directed toward enhancing general public’ knowledge of the competition protection policy implemented by institutions for protection of competition of countries participating in the seminar.

The third day of the seminar was dedicated to the instruments for market monitoring (sectoral analysis, studies, hypothetical cases, reports, researches, etc.) with the aim of identifying possible weaknesses in the market and/or the existence of conditions of competition infringements. Representatives of Lithuania, Germany, Ukraine, Romania and Serbia presented their experiences.

By giving their presentations, representatives of the Commission for Protection of Competition passed a particular contribution to the seminar. Dragan Penezeć, PhD, Secretary General, reviewed Commission for Protection of Competition’s activities, Gordana Bulatović, Chief of Staff, presented the implementation of existing advocacy competition tools in cooperation with the media used for enhancing competition culture, as well as Jelena Popović Markopulos, Senior Advisor in the Department for Economic Analysis, who spoke on the Serbian authority experiences in preparing sectoral analysis.

More than 30 participants from 21 authorities for the protection of competition coming from regional countries, European Union and Euro-Asian region participated in the seminar.

The Commission for Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia is hosting the OECD Regional Center seminar for competition, to be held in Belgrade from September 27-29, 2016. The Commission is selected among a great number of national authorities for competition law implementation that have applied to host this prestigious gathering.

Following Commission’s recommendation, the seminar will be dedicated to the topic of competition advocacy. The topic holds particular significance having in mind that the awareness on the importance and benefits of competition rules is still not sufficiently developed at the level of executive power, the business community, the judiciary and academic community, as well as among the citizens as consumers.

Part of the program will be dedicated to the utilization of market research and sectoral analyses in the competition protection practice. Within mentioned panel, experienced experts from this area will share their knowledge and prior experiences.

The seminar will be an opportunity for sharing of experiences between countries with different level of competition law development and related implementation practice. These meetings are also of a great significance for countries that are developing competition law implementation, among which is Serbia, as well as an opportunity to inform the general public on the basic issues regarding competition, its significance and influence on the economic prosperity of society.

Organization of the seminar is an additional recognition to the Commission for its work on an international level, especially being organized in the year marking Commission’s tenth year founding anniversary.

The seminar will be attended by more than 30 participants from 21 OECD Regional Center for Competition Seminar Held in Belgrade.

Following Slovenian colleagues’ invitation, the President of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Miloje Obradović, PhD, participated in the “Slovenian competition day”, held in Ljubljana.

The Conference focused on the EU Damages Directive implementation challenges, enacted with the goal of improved implementation of competition rules by providing rights to the damaged parties to exercise the right to compensation as a consequence of infringements of competition rules under national law. Competition protection authorities’ representatives from Austria, Croatia and Slovenia also took part in a constructive debate on the topic, as well as representatives of the academic and business communities, and courts.

Discussions on the modalities of improving relations and cooperation between Slovenian and Serbian competition protection authorities were held on the sidelines of the conference, alongside the plans for continuation of cooperation between the two institutions, regional initiatives concerning expansion of knowledge and harmonization of practices regarding competition rights and policy in the European Union, as well as current issues the two authorities for competition protection are currently involved.

Ms. Nina Vasić, MSc, Adviser in the Department for International Cooperation of the Commission for Protection of Cooperation also took part in the Serbian delegation.