Office for the Protection of Competition has agreed on commitments with Alma Career, job portal system will be more accessible to competitors
"This is a typical case of a potential local digital dominant player whose activities could have had a negative impact on the national market. It is much appreciated that it was quickly resolved through commitments that will open-up the market to competing undertakings," said Vice-Chairman Kamil Nejezchleb.
The Office investigated possible abuse of dominant position by Alma Career Czechia s.r.o. and Alma Career Oy (hereinafter referred to as the “Alma Career Group”) in the Czech market for the provision of advertising services on online job portals. The Alma Career Group operates the best-known job portals jobs.cz and prace.cz, while also being a producer of recruitment management software (known as ATS). In administrative proceedings, the Office investigated suspicions that the Alma Career group was abusing its position and, through price and technical barriers, making it difficult for competing ATS and job portals to connect to Alma Career's systems. This could have discouraged advertisers from using the services of competitors of the investigated undertaking.
During the administrative proceedings, the Alma Career Group submitted several proposals for commitments, which the Office subjected to market tests. The final version of Alma Career's commitments consists of (i) implementing a two-way API enabling fully automated interconnection of competing ATSs with ACC job portals (enabling automatic placement of job positions on ACC job portals from competing ATSs and obtaining responses from job applicants from the ACC job portal to this ATS); (ii) implementing an API enabling the automatic receipt of responses from applicants for job positions published on competing job portals into the ATS operated by ACC; and (iii) inclusion of the costs of developing and operating all APIs in the prices for the services of job portals and ATS operated by ACC (i.e., no separate fees for connecting ACC systems with competing systems).
According to the Office, such commitments will ensure effective competition in the relevant market, as their implementation will eliminate the potentially harmful situation within a relatively short period of time. The Office will continuously monitor the effectiveness of the implementation of the imposed commitments.
Press Unit of the Office
25/214 - S0273/2024
2026-10-01 / The Office Imposed Record Fine of Nearly CZK 2 billion for Cartel Agreement among Cable Manufacturers The Office for the Protection of Competition (the Office) imposed fines totalling CZK 1,942,000,000 on four companies operating in the cable manufacturing and sales sector for a cartel agreement. One...
2026-09-24 / Pet Food Distributor Fined CZK 36 million Plaček Pet Products s.r.o., a distributor of premium pet food and pet supplies, was fined CZK 36.438 million by the Office for the Protection of Competition (the Office). From 17 January 2013 to 3 March...
2026-09-17 / Lesy ČR banned wood-chip exports and were imposed a fine of more than CZK 17 million The Office for the Protection of Competition (hereinafter referred to as the "Office") imposed a fine of CZK 17.268 million on the state-owned company Lesy ČR (Forests of the Czech Republic) for violating...
2026-09-11 / Pegasus Cleared to Acquire Czech Airlines, Office for the Protection of Competition Approved the Merger Subject to Conditions The Office for the Protection of Competition (the Office) has approved the acquisition of Czech Airlines (České aerolinie a.s.) — and subsequently the airline Smartwings — by the Turkish group...
2026-08-26 / Fines exceeding CZK 280 million imposed on O2 Czech Republic and SHERLOG Technology for cartel agreement SHERLOG Technology, a.s. and O2 Czech Republic a.s. (hereinafter referred to as “SHERLOG” and “O2”) entered into a cartel agreement in the area of vehicle and other means of transport monitoring...
2026-08-17 / Chairman of the Czech Competition Authority Definitively Confirms Fines for Meal Voucher Issuers’ Cartel Meal voucher issuers Pluxee Česká republika a.s., Edenred CZ s.r.o., and Up Česká republika s.r.o. are required to pay fines totalling CZK 279,152,000. The decision has now been definitively confirmed...
2026-06-30 / Annual Report 2025: CZK 500 Million in Antitrust Fines and Complex Public Procurement Cases The Czech Office for the Protection of Competition has published its annual report, summarising the results of its activities in 2025. In addition to protecting competition, the Office is responsible...
2026-05-06 / HP Tronic Faces Nearly CZK 40 Million Fine for Dictating Prices to Retailers The Office for the Protection of Competition has imposed a fine of CZK 38,971,000 on HP TRONIC Zlín, spol. s r.o. (hereinafter “HP TRONIC”), for entering into prohibited agreements restricting competition...