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Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic Annual Report 2001
13
If an participant to the administrative proceedings does not agree with the final decision of the Office,
he may submit a complaint on examining the legality of this decision to the court. Pursuant to the
article 246, par. 2, letter a) of the Civil Court Rule, the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic is
objectively relevant to examine the decision of the central state administrative bodies, it means of the
Office as well.
In 2001 the Supreme Court decided on seven cases. In two cases it stopped the proceedings as the
complainant withdrew its complaint, in three cases it stopped the proceedings as the complainant
submitted a complaint after the expiration of time period, in one case it abolished the decision of the
Office and returned the matter for the next proceedings and in one case it rejected the complaint.
There are seven cases remaining to complete.
THE ROLE OF ANTIMONOPOLY OFFICE OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC IN THE FORMULATION
AND IMPLEMENTATION OF OTHER POLICIES
In addition to sanctioning anti-competitive practices by means of abuse of a dominant position in
the market, by cartel agreements and monitoring market structures by means of concentration
inspections, the Antimonopoly Office’s duty is also to monitor and call for adherence to and application
of competition principles in the process of drafting policies and the legal framework of our community.
In the course of 2001 the Office therefore got actively involved in the drafting of governmental and
economy policies and through its comments the Office proposed alternative solutions to these issues
intended not to be restrictive in their effect and to promote competition.
Advocacy of the competition principles to the laws
In the course of 2001 the Office got actively involved in the interministry comment proceedings, where
it has expressed 55 fundamental comments. Several of them are as follows:
·
In the draft of the Act on Obligatory Healthcare Insurance, on Organization of Obligatory
Healthcare Insurance, on Financing of Obligatory Healthcare Insurance, on Establishing of the
Office for Common Activities of Healthcare Insurance Companies, on Contractual Additional
Healthcare Insurance and on amendment of some acts (Act on Healthcare Insurance) the
insurance has been bound with the fulfilment of the condition, according to which the essential
insurance is realised for 800 000 policyholders at least. Enforcement of such a condition would
have a negative impact on the plurality of healthcare insurance, as the total number of
policyholders in SR and the dominant position of Všeobecná zdravotná pois ov a would result
in reduction of number of insurance companies and in creation of two or three insurance
companies only.
·
The draft of the act amending Act No. 118/1996 Coll. on Protection of Deposits and on
amendment of some acts in the wording of Act No. 154/1999 Coll. has from January 1, 2002
extended the legal protection of bank deposits also for the bank deposits of some kinds of
legal persons of non-profit nature, what has resulted in disadvantaging of small undertakings –
legal persons, which are not obliged to have balancing verified by auditor, comparing to
undertakings – natural persons, which deposits in banks would be protected since this date.
The Office asked for the abolishing of these unequal conditions.
·
The problem of state aid provision in the form of tax relieves pursuant to the generally binding
legal rule has been one of the main problems in the draft of the next enforcement procedure of
the statutory order of the Government of the Slovak Republic No. 192/1998 Coll., dealing with
theconditions of exemption of new tax subjects from the income taxes of legal persons and in
enforcement of articles 35 and 35a of the Act No. 366/1999 Coll. on Income Taxes. Coming
out from the subjected regulation on conditions of exemption of new tax subjects from the
income taxes of legal persons and from the relevant provisions of the Act on Income Taxes
and on Tax Relief Enforcement pursuant to the already quoted articles, such an relief provision
has been considered as a state aid as it has been bound to the fulfilment of criteria determined
by statutory order, what had excluded its overall application. According to the mentioned facts
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