The Commission for the Protection of Competition ex officio continued the procedure initiated by the notification of the concentration resulting from the acquisition of individual control by the commercial company Atlantic Grand doo Beograd, over the commercial company Strauss Adriatic doo Šimanovci, by the purchase of shares, in order to examine whether the reported concentration meets the conditions of permissibility from Article 19 of the Law on the Protection of Competition, i.e. whether the implementation of this concentration would significantly restrict, distort or prevent competition on the market of the Republic of Serbia or part thereof, and especially if such restriction, distortion or prevention would be the result of the creation or strengthening of a dominant position.

In the investigation procedure, the commission will carry out all the necessary actions and establish all the facts and present evidence in order to assess the criteria prescribed by the Law (Article 19 of LPC) which determines the permissibility of the concentration.

By virtue of the conclusion by which the procedure was continued ex officio, all persons having data, documents or other relevant information that can contribute to establishing the correct factual situation in this procedure are invited to submit them without delay to the Commission for the Protection of Competition at the address 25/IV Savska Street, Belgrade.

The Commission for the Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in the field of application of competition law with the Georgian National Competition Agency during the II International Conference on Competition and Consumer Protection held in Tbilisi.

This Memorandum, signed by Commission Council member Čedomir Radojčić and President of the National Competition Agency of Georgia Irakli Lekvinadze, is aimed at improving the cooperation in the field of competition protection as well as further development of bilateral relations.

Also within the panel “Restrictive agreements, effective mechanisms for detection and prevention”, member of the Council of the Commission Čedomir Radojčić held a presentation of the Business Compliance Program Model with regulations on competition protection with Guidelines and lists for compliance control and risk identification which was developed by the Commission.
The heads of state authorities of Georgia, representatives of regulatory bodies, experts from relevant fields and agencies of other countries, representatives of international organizations (UNCTAD, OECD, etc.), media and others participated in the conference as well.

The objective of this meeting, organized by the Georgian National Competition Agency, the National Bank of Georgia, the Georgian National Regulatory Commission for Energy and Water Supply, the National Communications Commission and the State Oversight Service of Georgia, was to exchange experiences and best international practices, improve joint action and establish cooperation between participants.

Representatives of the Commission for the Protection of Competition met with the representatives of the OECD from the OECD Department for Southeast Europe and the OECD Department for Competition, as well as with a representative of the Republic Secretariat for Public Policies.

The meeting was held as part of the continuation of activities on the project “Fair Market Conditions for Competitiveness”, which the OECD has been implementing since 2019.

The objective of the meeting was to organize a joint workshop on the topic of assessing the impact of regulations on competition in the market, intended primarily for civil servants who work on the drafting of regulations at ministries and other organizations that exercise public authority.

In order to help market participants in the process of adopting a compliance program with the rules on competition protection, the Commission has prepared in hardcopy, the Guidelines for the development of a program of corporate compliance with the regulations on competition protection, the Model of the Corporate Compliance Program with the Regulations on competition protection accompanying the Guidelines and two checklists for compliance control and risk identification in English.

The aim of these materials is to guide market participants, both large and small and medium-sized companies, when drafting internal acts and regulations to ensure that their operations are in line with regulations on competition protection and to draw the attention of a wider circle of market participants to the need to harmonize corporate operations with this area of law.

The Guidelines with the accompanying documents are available on the Commission’s website and can be downloaded in hardcopy, both in Serbian and English, every business day at the Commission for the Protection of Competition, 25 Savska Street, Belgrade.

Representatives of the Commission for the Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia – Čedomir Radojčić, member of the Council and senior advisors Nina Vasić and Maja Dobrić, took part in the 22nd ICN annual conference that took place in Barcelona from October 18 to 20, hosted by the Spanish competition authority, the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC).

The conference was attended by hundreds of participants from around 100 countries, namely the highest representatives of competition authorities, judges, university professors, lawyers, economists and consultants from the field of competition protection, etc.
The topics of this year’s conference reflected the activities of working groups within the International Competition Network (ICN) and related to the role of courts, digital concentrations, lawyers, challenges in cases of abuse of a dominant position, the relationship between privacy protection and competition protection, selection of priorities, further steps in cartel detection and other topics as well.

During the conference, representatives of the Commission had a notable participation, Nina Vasić was the moderator of the panel within the International Competition Network for the Effectiveness of Competition Authorities (ICN AEWG) on the topic of Measuring effectiveness: ex-post and ex-ante impact assessment of competition authorities’ activities and Maja Dobrić, within the same working group, presented the Commission’s experiences in an agency-only session on the topic of Innovative detection tools and their effective usage.

At the conference, experience was exchanged with other competition authorities and international organizations, and interest was expressed in ways of detecting competition violations that the Commission had in its practice.

The Commission for Protection of Competition initiated proceedings against the market participants, KTG Solucije d.o.o. Subotica and Eco sense d.o.o. Subotica due to the reasonable assumption that by colluding in the public procurement procedures of different contracting authorities, they infringed competition in the sense of Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition.

Simultaneously with the initiation of the proceedings, the authorized officials of the Commission for Protection of Competition carried out a dawn raid at two locations and collected the relevant documentation for establishing the facts in this procedure.

The Commission discovered, through the Public Procurement Office, that the company KTG Solucije, as a bidder in certain public procurement procedures, was withdrawing its bids, which is why the contracting authorities were concluding contracts with the second-ranked bidder, the company Eco sense, but at higher prices compared to those offered by KTG Solucije. The subject matter of the disputed public procurement procedures were materials and means for maintaining the hygiene of facilities.

Apart from discovering about the withdrawal of bids, the Commission has, by analyzing the IP addresses (Internet Protocol addresses) from which the companies KTG Solucije d.o.o. and Eco sense d.o.o. were accessing the Public Procurement Portal in the said public procurement procedures, either to download the tender documents or to submit bids, noted that both companies were almost always accessing from identical IP addresses. The results of the analysis of the IP addresses indicate that both companies were accessing the Public Procurement Portal almost always from the devices which were connected through the same internet network, and possibly even from an identical device.

It was reasonably assumed that the companies KTG Solucije d.o.o. and Eco sense d.o.o., submitted bids, especially but not exclusively, in the analyzed public procurement procedures, contrary to the statements given in each individual public procurement procedure, i.e. it was reasonably assumed that the bids were not independently submitted, without the agreement with other bidders, which would constitute a competition infringement from Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition.

All persons who possess data, documents or other relevant information which may be significant for determining the facts in this case, are hereby invited to submit them to the Commission for Protection of Competition, at 25/IV Savska Street, Belgrade.

The Commission for Protection of Competition initiated ex officio proceedings against the company HOTELSKO, GOSTITELJSKO I TURISTIČKO PREDUZEĆE MOSKVA DOO BEOGRAD (STARI GRAD), in order to assess the concentration which was implemented even though it was not approved in accordance with the Law on Protection of Competition, and which had, according to the reasonable assumption, resulted from the acquisition of control by the company HOTELSKO, UGOSTITELJSKO I TURISTIČKO PREDUZEĆE MOSKVA over the operations of Hotel “Tonanti” in Vrnjačka Banja, which may represent an independent business entity.

In the investigation proceedings, the Commission will evaluate the criteria prescribed by the Law (Art. 19 of the Law on Protection of Competition) which determine the permissibility of a concentration, and in particular, the circumstance that the concentration under review had been implemented, but not notified, which was the obligation of market participants. The law stipulates that concentrations of market participants are allowed, unless they would significantly restrict, distort or prevent competition on the market of the Republic of Serbia, and especially if that restriction, distortion or prevention would be the result of creation or strengthening of a dominant position.

The Commission will determine the important facts, evidence and other elements on which it will base its decision regarding the possible determination of a measure of protection of competition, that is, a measure of deconcentration.

By way of conclusion on initiation of the proceedings, all persons who possess data, documents or other relevant information which can contribute to the establishment of the correct facts in this case are invited to submit them without delay to the Commission for the Protection of Competition at the address 25/IV Savska Street, Belgrade.

On the occasion of celebrating the Competition Day, the Commission for Protection of Competition prepared a graphical presentation, of the most important work results for the last ten years (2013 – 2022) based on its Annual Reports.

Special significance has been on the results of the three-years’ work activities carried out in the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic, which were compared to three years preceding the pandemic, to capture its impact on the Commission’s work.

The analysis showed that the Commission (starting from 2020 as the first full year of the IV Cconvocation of the Commission Council), accomplished significant results, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, with the same number of employees, compared to three previous years, as follows:

• Positive effect on the RS budget has increased by 62%.
• Number of decisions determining competition infringements which were not annulled has increased by 100%.
• Monetary amount of imposed fines in decisions whichthat were not annulled by courts has increased by 72%.
• Efficiency of imposition of competition protection measures has increased from 19% to 69%
• Number of processed merger control cases has increased by 25%.
• Number of sector inquiries has increased by 50%.
• Number of conducted dawn-raids has grown by 36%
• Work productivity of the employed staff has grown by 30%.

This instruction shall regulate in more detail the content and method of submitting a request for determining the measure of protection of data sources and/or specific data, prescribed by the provisions of Article 45 of the Law on Protection of Competition (for the purposes of this instruction: request for data protection).

Data protection implies that the protected data will not be publicly published, that is, that they will be omitted from the decisions and acts of the Commission for the Protection of Competition that are publicly published, as well as that they cannot be viewed or copied when inspecting the case files, regardless of whether they are in printed or electronic form, in Serbian or a foreign language of the original document.

Protected data shall not have the property of information of public importance in the sense of the law regulating free access to information of public importance.

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.