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Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic Annual Report 2001
2
Competition protection
– present legal status
The following legal regulations govern protection of competition in the Slovak Republic:
! The Constitution of the Slovak Republic, Article 55, paragraph 2, which states: „The Slovak
Republic protects and supports competition.“
! Act of the National Council of the Slovak Republic No. 136/2001 Coll. on Protection of
Competition and on Amendment of Act of the Slovak National Council No. 347/1990 Coll. on
Organisation of Ministries and Other Central State Administrative Bodies of the Slovak Republic
as amended.
! Notice of the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic No. 167/2001 Coll., which sets out
details on Agreements restricting competition calculation of turnover.
! Notice of the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic No. 168/2001 Coll., which sets out
details on the conditions of notification of concentration.
! Criminal Code, which in Article 149 limits the factual basis of the criminal act of abusing
participation in competition
Legislation activity in 2001
A new Act No. 136/2001 Coll. on Protection of Competition entered into force on 1 May 2001.
Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic issued two notices to execute this act. The first one sets
out details on calculation of turnover (Notice No. 167/2001 Coll.) and the second one sets out details
on the conditions of notification of concentration (Notice No. 168/2001 Coll.). Both notices entered into
force on May 10, 2001.
The need to prepare a new act on protection of competition emerged from the necessity to harmonize
Slovak competition law with the acquis communitaire within the approximation process, as well as from
Office’s experience with the application of the preceding Act on the Protection of Economic
Competition. The Office prepared the new act with the view of adopting the acquis communitaire from
the area of competition to the greatest possible extent and simultaneously it adjusted those provision of
the Act which application had been problematic either for undertakings or the Office.
Agreements restricting competition
As for the agreements restricting competition, the new act, alike the preceding one, adjusts the de
minimis doctrine, the purpose of which is to prevent assessments of agreements restricting
competition having negligible impact on the competition in the relevant market.
The new act increased the percentage threshold for the share of parties to agreements restricting
competition, which indicates the importance of agreement’s impact on the competition from 5% to
10%, i.e. if the combined share of parties to such an agreement in the relevant market is less than
10%, the agreement restricting competition is exempted from the ban. However, the de minimis
doctrine is not enforced to the agreements containing cartel arrangements as well as to the restriction
of competition by means of the cumulative effect of agreements, which contain a similar type of
competition restrictions and which lead to similar effects in the relevant market, and their combined
share exceeds 10% of the total shares for concerned goods in the relevant market.
The list of practices deemed to be restricting competition was extended in the new act to include
collusive behaviour of undertakings resulting in undertakings co-ordinating their bids in the process of
public procurement.
The possibility for the undertakings to request the Office to issue its standpoint on a draft of an
agreement restricting competition is also new.
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