Mircea and Partners | Competition Law

Limitele răspunderii pentru participarea la o înțelegere anticoncurențială

nikoadmin — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 09:44:26 +0000

Tema: Care sunt limitele răspunderii pentru participarea la o înțelegere anticoncurențială? Evoluții recente în jurisprudența Uniunii Europene.

Când? 24 noiembrie 2016, ora 14.00 – 17.00
Unde? Centrul de conferinţe din incinta hotelului NH Bucharest
Bd. Mircea Vodă, nr.21, sector 3, Bucureşti, Sala Bucharest, etaj 1

Vă invităm în data de 24 noiembrie 2016 la un nou seminar cu o temă actuală și de interes, susținută de către dna. Magdalena-Daniela Popescu, avocat în Baroul București, specializat în dreptul concurenței. care ne va prezenta aspecte interesante din practica Curții de Justiție a Uniunii Europene.

În cadrul seminarului, vă propunem să dezbatem o cauză soluționată de CJUE în care a fost atrasă răspunderea unui facilitator pentru participarea la o înțelegere anticoncurențială.

Seminarul va avea un caracter interactiv, motiv pentru care participanţii sunt rugaţi să transmită pe adresa de e-mail cmircea@mircea-asociatii.ro orice aspect de drept în vederea notării pe lista de discuții.

Numărul de locuri la acest seminar este limitat.

Pentru detalii suplimentare, nu ezitați să ne contactați!
Persoana de contact: Cătălina Mircea
Tel. 031.43.27.292/293, Fax 0314327294
Email cmircea@mircea-asociatii.ro sau office@mircea-asociatii.ro.

În vederea participării, vă rugăm să completați Formularul de înscriere.

Formular inscriere

The tortious liability in the competition law

nikoadmin — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:45:50 +0000

Mr.Valentin Mircea shall defend his PhD thesis with the topic ”The tortious liability in the competition law” on 27 March 2014, from 15.00 hours, at the Board Hall of the Law Faculty of the Bucharest University (Mihai Kogălniceanu Bld no.34-36, sector 5). Participation is free, in the limits of the available places, based on the prior registration at the e-mail address office@mircea-partners.ro.

LEGAL ALERT! – From 1 February 2014 the dawn-raids of the Romanian Competition Council and of the European Commission at the headquarters of the undertakings will be made only based on the prior authorization of a judge from the Bucharest Court of Appeal.

nikoadmin — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 19:59:08 +0000

As of February 1, 2014, once the new Criminal Procedure Code comes into force, the article 37 of the Competition Law no.21/1996, as republished and further amended, has been amended.
Further to the amendment, the dawn-raids will be performed by the competition authority at the head-quarters and in other commercial spaces of the undertakings only based on a warrant issued by the Bucharest Court of Appeal.
We remind that since the Competition Law was enacted in 1996 and up to the present such dawn-raids could be peformed at the headquarters of the undertakings only based on an administrative order of the President of the Competition Council.
For personal spaces – domiciles etc – the judicial warrant was already required since the Competition law came into force.
The existence of a judicial warrant will require the Romanian Competition Council increased attention in using the dawn-raids tool.
In the same time, the existence of the authorization of a judge will bring more force to the controls at the headquarters of the undertakings.
The legislative change requires the corresponding adaptation of the competition compliance programs of the undertakings.

Valentin Mircea interview on the ”parallel” trade of food in the magazine Revista Piata – January 2014

nikoadmin — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 12:41:44 +0000

Valentin Mircea, Senior Partner at Mircea and Partners, on the ”parallel” trade of food in the magazine Revista Piata – January 2014

Agreement between the Romanian National Lottery and the Greek company Intralot – illegal

nikoadmin — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 12:41:04 +0000

The Romanian Competition Council finds that the long-term agreement between the Romanian National Lottery and the Greek company Intralot is illegal and applies fines amounting to almost 4 million EUR

The Romanian Competition Council applied fines amounting to approx.12,7 million EUR to several large producers and importers of home appliances and electronic products

nikoadmin — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 12:38:52 +0000

The Romanian Competition Council announced today, 16 January 2014, that the competition authority imposed fines 14 of producers or importers of electronics and home appliances, members of board of the business associations ECOTIC and ROREC – Philips Romania, Panasonic, Electrolux, Arctic, Whirlpool, Indesit, BSH (Bosch und Siemens) among them – with fines ranging from 3% to 4% of their turnover for the participation in the period 2008-2009 at a cartel which aim was to control the trade of their products and to set the level of the discounts in certain buy-back campaigns.

According to the decision, the sanctioned cartels took place in the framework of the associations ECOTIC and ROREC, which have been created in order to facilitate the obligations of the producers and the importers of home appliances to recover certain quantities from the waste resulting from such products. The Romanian competition authority considers that under the pretext of realizing legitimate purposes, in connection to the protection of the environment, the sanctioned companies created a mchanism which allowed them to anticipate the volumes of sales of the competitors (a sort of indirect exchange of confidential information) and agreed to limit the level of the discount granted to customers with acquired new products whilst returning an old similar item during the buy-back campaigns.

The above mentioned behaviors, sanctioned by the Romanian Competition Council, demonstrates once more that the border between what is permitted and what is prohibited by the competition rules is often blurred, especially when it is about interactions which take place in the framework of a business association.

http://www.consiliulconcurentei.ro/uploads/docs/items/id9053/amenzi_deseuri_2014.pdf

In merger cases, larger market shares do not result always in price increases – empirical evidence further to the ex-post analysis of the Lidl/Plus merger.

nikoadmin — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 11:59:15 +0000

http://www.zf.ro/companii/ce-spune-consiliul-concurentei-despre-preturile-practicate-de-lidl-dupa-preluarea-magazinelor-plus-11789277

These conclusions are an evidence of the fact that the size of the market shares is not the only element which should be taken into account in order to evaluate the potential effects of a merger, as it has been concluded today by the Romanian Competition Council today, 18 December 2013, further to the first ex-post monitoring of a merger in Romania – the Lidl/Plus case.
Although the market shares of Lidl and of the Plus chain of supermarkets were as high as 40-50% on certain local markets, thus being above the alert level, it has been demonstrated that, subsequent to the merger, prices did not increase more than the average on the market, except for a few products – bread, milk, oil – for which the demand is generally rigid.
The ex-post monitoring is used frequently and is useful to the competition authorities in order to ”fine-tune” their methods for analysing the effects of a merger.
Mr.Valentin Mircea, who will take over the position of Senior Partner of Mircea and Partners, from January 2014 declared:
”I am glad to hear these conclusions because I took part in the clearence of this merger and I proposed to make the ex-post analysis, so that the doubts which still persisted at that time, regarding the potential price increases, is submitted to a proper evaluation methodology. The ex-post anaysis cannot result in any change of the authorisation decsion but if in a certain case the results are negative, the competition authority has the possibility to investigate the existence of a possible abuse of dominance, in addition to learning the necessaary lessons for aproaching similar situations in the future.”

The Romanian Competition Council apply fines of almost 2,8 million EUR for the participants to a bid-rigging

nikoadmin — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 12:21:54 +0000

This is an interesting case due to the fact the infringement committed by the three Swiss weapons producers would have been realised in an in-direct way, through a company which represented them in Romania.
Because the use of a joint representative (agents, not distributors) is common place in certain industries in Romania, it must be assesed to which extent the decision announced today, 16 December 2013 by the Romanian Competition Council, would require to review and modify similar agreements, in order to make sure they comply with the prohibition of cartels.

http://www.consiliulconcurentei.ro/uploads/docs/items/id9037/amenzi_arme_2013.pdf

EC applies an unprecedented large fine to the banks which participated to the LIBOR rigging

nikoadmin — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 12:29:54 +0000

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-1208_en.htm

The report of the Romanian Competition Council regarding the state-of-facts in key sectors of the Romanian economy

nikoadmin — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 12:40:34 +0000

The report, available here http://www.consiliulconcurentei.ro/uploads/docs/items/id8327/raport_privind_piata_serviciilor_de_plati_prin_carduri-neconfidential.pdf
(Romanian only) – is a well made report and contains some interesting points.

We draw the attention, especially, to the calcuation, for the first time, of an index which shows the potential competition in several industries – the aggregated index of competition pressure (IAPC, Romanian acronym – pag.14-28 of the report. The calculations made by the Competition Council indicate that there are ”red flags” in respect of some of these industries. Thus, the undertakings active in the industries which are at the bottom of the scale from the report of the Romanian Competition Council should pay maximum attention to their actions in the market in the upcoming period (at least until the next report, in the fall of 2014).

Operatorii economici activi în industriile aflate în partea de jos a scalei din raportul Consiliului Concurenței ar trebui să fie foarte atenți la comportamentele lor pe piață!