Representatives of the Commission for Protection of Competition took part in a conference organized by the Association of Serbian Banks, where they held a lecture on “Compliance of business with regulations on protection of competition”.

The topics of the lecture were the legal framework, the goal of competition rules, the institutional framework and competencies of the Commission for Protection of Competition, and then the specific risks related to protection that need to be identified and avoided in the course of business compliance, business compliance needs and program guidelines compliance of operations with the regulations on protection of competition adopted by the Commission at the end of 2021.

Counseling “Compliance functions in banks” was organized as the 17th annual conference in Vrnjačka Banja and was attended by representatives of commercial banks, the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, the Association for Business Compliance and others.

The Commission for Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia has adopted a new Instruction for detecting bid rigging in the public procurement procedure, in the light of the new legal solutions (Law on Public Procurement, amendments to the Criminal Code) that were adopted after the 2011 Instruction.

The Commission for Protection of Competition recognized the need to emphasize and raise the level of awareness among market participants about the need and ways of business compliance with current regulations and regulations in the field of competition protection.

The aim of issuing the Instruction is to prevent and foil the implementation of “rigged or falsified offers” (bid rigging), as the most severe forms of cartels. The consequence of such agreements between competitors – bidders regarding the offered price is the elimination of competition between them, which is why the contracting authority would pay more for the subject of procurement than it would pay under the conditions of competition.

The OECD Guidelines for Combating Bi Rigging in Public Procurement and the Notice of the European Commission in accordance with the needs of cooperation between the Commission and the Public Procurement Office were used in the preparation.

Representatives of the Commission for Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia participated on the 21st ICN Annual Conference and 21st International Conference on Competition in Berlin, hosted by the German competition authority (Bundeskartellamt).

The Bundeskartellamt is bringing together two of the most renowned international events dealing with competition policy and competition law enforcement, the International Conference on Competition (ICC) and the Annual Conference of the International Competition Network (ICN). In 1982 the International Conference on Competition was launched by the Bundeskartellamt in Berlin, where the Bundeskartellamt was based at the time, and has since then been held every two years. This year the Bundeskartellamt was also hosted the annual conference of the ICN, the International Competition Network founded in 2001, which today counts 140 member agencies from 130 jurisdictions.

The main topics were the issue of relationship between competition law and policy with other areas, primarily consumer protection and access and use of confidential data, regulatory and other measures necessary to establish and strengthen competition on digital platform markets, as well as other current issues from the areas of anti-trust, concentration assessment, competition protection advocacy, etc.

Approximately 450 participants from over 80 countries attended the conferences, highest representatives of competition authorities, judges, university professors, anti-trust lawyers, representatives of German ministries and other governmental bodies, international companies, etc.

The Commission for Protection of Competition initiated an ex officio procedure of investigation of infringement of competition against the company Polet-keramika Novi Bečej, in order to examine the existence of restrictive agreements referred to in Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition, which restricts competition on the market of wholesale ceramic tiles in the Republic of Serbia, and performed an unannounced investigation.

The commission conducted an analysis of the state of competition in the distribution channels of ceramic tiles and sanitary ware, within which it also obtained sales contracts that the manufacturer Polet-keramika Novi Bečej concluded with buyers for further sale. The analysis of contracts, their addendums and annexes revealed provisions that point to the existence of a practice known as resale pricing by the manufacturer/seller, which restricts the buyer to make independent business decisions related to pricing policy, which is a restrictive agreement, constituting an infringement of competition under Article 10 of the Law.

In the investigation procedure, the commission shall undertake all necessary evidentiary actions in order to correctly determine the factual situation, examine the existence of a competition infringement, and make a final decision upon finalization of the procedure.

All persons having data, documents or other relevant information that can contribute to establishing the factual situation in this procedure are hereby invited to submit them at the address of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Savska 25 / IV, Belgrade.

Representatives of the Commission for Protection of Competition held a lecture at a webinar entitled “Concentration of market participants and effect on the process of realization of assets in bankruptcy proceedings” organized by the Bankruptcy Supervision Agency, with the support of the World Bank.

The aim of this webinar is to introduce the participants to the law on competition governing the area of concentration control, which can occur in bankruptcy proceedings.

111 bankruptcy administrators and judges of commercial courts from all over Serbia took part in the webinar.