St. Martin´s Conference 2014

8th St. Martin‘s Competition Conference was held by the Office for the Protection of Competition (the Office) on 11th and 12th November. This year more than a hundred of Czech and foreign experts were again participating in this annual event.

The conference was launched by the Chairman of the Office for the Protection of Competition Petr Rafaj. The Chairman pointed out the significance of the protection of competition and expressed his belief that the conference would be beneficial for competition law experts from private and public sector and academics. 

Introductory panel was traditionally focused on the recent news from competition policy in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the European Union. The Vice-Chair of the Office Michal Petr provided the overview of initiated administrative proceedings and issued decisions in particular areas. So far during the year 2014 the Office has initiated six proceedings concerning prohibited agreements and one proceeding against the alleged abuse of dominant position. Seven decisions have been issued. “All proceedings represent new cases and most of them concern our priority area – bid rigging cartels,” Michal Petr stated. He also pointed out another increase of the number of assessed mergers and in particular the ambitiousness of these proceedings. Already four merger cases had to be assessed within the so called second phase. 

Michal Petr dedicated his extensive contribution to the recent judicial review of competition cases in the Czech Republic. He presented in particular the ruling of the Regional Court in Brno upholding the decision in Student Agency case. Within the assessed decision the standard for relevant market definition on the basis of econometric analysis has been set.

The Vice-Chair of the Slovakian Competition Authority, Radoslav Tóth, informed the audience about the competition news in Slovakia. News from the decision-making practice of the European Commission and the EU judicial review process were provided by Petr Zákoucký (Clifford Chance). 

The second panel discussions were focused on the anticompetitive behavior of associations of undertakings. Tomáš Kubeša from the Office opened the panel by a presentation of this year´s decision in the case of a Chamber of Veterinarians. The national legal frameworks and particular cases have been presented by the Chairman of the Belgian Competition Authority, Jacques Steenbergen, representative of Greek Competition Authority, Anna Gatziou, Zuzana Šabová from Slovakia and David Vogrinec from Slovenia. 

The closing part of the first conference day discussed the issue of more economic approach. Daniel Donath (ČEZ Company) reflected on the impact of the recent ruling of the EU General Court in Intel case on the advanced econometric methods in competition law. European Commission´s economist Milan Brouček analyzed the rulings of Czech judges in the Student Agency case. Alexis Walckiers from Belgian Competition Authority focused on cases of hotel online booking from the economic perspective. Goran Serdarevic from Frontier Economics analyzed the European Commission´s approach to mergers of mobile operators. Details on the assessment of cases of failing firm defense were provided by Raphael De Coninck.

The second conference day offered discussions on minority shareholding in control of concentrations, competition aspects of online sales and significant market power.

Martin Vitula provided detailed information on the European Commission´s proposal to review the acquisitions of minority shareholdings. Expert from European Commission, Ulrich von Koppenfels, presented the topic from the point of view of the Commission. The practice of the review of acquisitions of non-controlling minority shares has already existed in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, USA, Canada and Japan. Chairman of the Lithuanian Competition Council, Šarunas Keserauskas pointed out the problems of application of this model in smaller countries. Country with the highest number of minority shareholding cases is Italy as stated by Ombretta Main (Italian Competition Authority) when one third of the amount concerns mergers in financial sector. Based on Italian experience ex ante merger assessment has been recommended. Robert Neruda discussed within his contribution the actual need of new provisions on minority shareholdings. The example of the Office´s decision from the year 2003 concerning the concentration of ČEZ and other five undertakings active in energy sector was presented. The Office cleared the merger subject to conditions that consisted of the sale of minority shareholdings. 

Panel moderated by Mr David Anderson focused on the issue of online sales of goods. Basic rules applied to the online sales were summarized by Tomáš Fiala. Representative of German Bundeskartellamt pointed out the existence of legal uncertainty. The most frequent competition breaches are bundling of prices to another sale, price parity and non-price restrictions such as prohibition of online sales of particular products, prohibition of use of price comparing websites and other. Jiří Kindl focused on the specifications of multisided online platforms. Ralph Taschke from the Austrian Competition Authority presented Austrian cases concerning online sales.

A part of this year´s conference became a workshop dedicated to the issue of the law on significant market power. Number of leading Czech lawyers, representatives of retail chains and suppliers of food and agricultural products participated in the morning workshop. For example the definition of a supplier, the absolute concept of significant market power and calculations of turnovers have been discussed. 

The concluding panel of the conference was also dedicated to the significant market power. Regulation of supplier-buyer relations in Italy has been presented by Ombretta Main. On the national level the issue was discussed by Josef Bejček from Masaryk University, Marta Nováková from Czech Confederation of Commerce and Tourism and Miroslav Koberna from Federation of Food and Drinks Industries. The conference was closed by the Vice-Chairman of the Office Hynek Brom who informed the audience about the prepared revision of the Act on Significant Market Power.