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The issue of ‘dual quality food’ was publicized in 2015 by the Czech Republic and subsequently taken up by the Visegrad Group and the EU forum. It exemplifi es the wider problem of the undesirable phenomena present on the EU market of dual standards of branded products. The European Commission has published a set of guidelines on the application of current EU food law and consumer protection law against unfair market practices (Notice of 26 September 2017) to help national authorities determine whether a company violates EU law by selling dual quality products in different Member States. The aim of this article is to look at the current proposals to solve this problem in terms of their effectiveness, and to inquire into the existence of other possible solutions that ensure greater effi ciency.
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The author analyzes the Judgment of the General Court (Seventh Chamber) of 17 November 2017 Gmina Miasto Gdynia and Port Lotniczy Gdynia-Kosakowo sp. z o.o. v. European Commission (Case T-263/15). The author also compares opinions of legal doctrine and judicature whether the failure to initiate a formal investigation procedure before the adoption of a decision constitutes a breach of a fundamental and absolute procedural requirement in the form of the right of interested parties to submit comments and adopt a position.
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The article presents the possibility of copying by inspectors of IT data carriers of the party under inspection, without selecting which information contained therein is necessity to achieve the aim of the inspection, and reviewing those records in the seat of the Polish Competition Authority (UOKiK) in the light of the judgment of the Competition and Consumer Protection Court dated 7 March 2017 no XVII Amz 15/17. This analysis is based on the interpretation of the applicable regulations under the Polish Competition Act in terms of the scope of an inspection and the inspected party’s rights protection. The author also sets out the jurisprudence of the Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning the selection of information placed on IT data carriers and IT solutions currently available for use in this area. The article contains the assessment of the qualification by the court of the copying of IT data carriers by the Polish NCA as ‘securing the evidence’ indicating a number of premises that were not taken into account by the court in resolving the matter being the subject of the judgment
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The aim of this paper is to present the issue of gun jumping in the decisional practice of the EC and in EU case law. Outlined at the outset is the general framework of competition law obligations imposed on merging parties prior to obtaining a merger clearance. Presented next is the decisional practice of the EC and the judgments of EU courts regarding gun jumping. On that basis, the paper provides conclusions as to the scope of the standstill obligation and the current approach of the EC to fining gun jumping. The article also discusses possible solutions meant to increase legal certainty for undertakings in the field of gun jumping
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The paper provides an analysis of rules on staggered or creeping concentrations (i.e. group of transactions treated as a single transaction for the purposes of the assessment of an obligation to notify such operation to the European Commission) under the EU merger control system as well as the enforcement of these rules. The paper includes, inter alia, an analysis of rules on subsequent transactions as well as suggestions how to improve the rules on staggered concentrations
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The article presents selected aspects of preventive concentration control of enterprises. The goals and the different nature of this review (different from those usually applied to entrepreneurs) are particularly interesting and important from the standpoint of competition protection. Therefore, considered in this article are issues related to the competitiveness of enterprises and selected aspects of their concentrations. Analyzed are also the goals of competition law. The last part of the paper contains comments concerning the essence, objectives and effects of preventive concentration control.
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The legal environment applied to Polish energy companies, operating within vertically integrated structures, has significantly changed after Poland’s accession to the EU. Previously, the subject of the activity of the then power plants (operating as state-owned enterprises property of the State Treasury, and then transformed into sole-shareholder companies of the State Treasury) included both: transmission or distribution of energy as well as its sale or production. The functioning of these enterprises as monopolists in transmission or distribution of energy, and at the same time operating in the sphere of energy sales, was at that time diagnosed as the main barrier to the development of a free and competitive energy sales market. This created a real risk of a monopolist giving unauthorized preferential treatment to its own integrated seller. In connection with this diagnosis, measures were taken to provide interested parties with non-discriminatory access to energy networks – the unbundling instrument became its main tool, understood as the separation of sales and energy production from network operations
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Polish Public Procurement Act contains many references to its competition law. There are references to the Competition and Consumer Protection Act and to the Combating Unfair Competition Act. These laws include definitions of terms such as “bid rigging”, “capital group”, “unfair competition act” or “trade secret”. In the article, the author examines links between Public Procurement Act, the Act on Competition and Consumer Protection and the Act on Combating Unfair Competition. The author recalls also changes introduced by the amendment of the Public Procurement Act in the field of competition law
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The article analyzes the requirement and importance of cooperation concerning the relationship between the controlling competition authority and the controlled economic entity. In the light of EU and Polish jurisprudence, it presents the essence and role of proper cooperation within the course of control activities undertaken by the representatives of competition authorities. Also presented is the issue of possible financial penalties in the event of an improper or insufficient fulfillment of the co-operation obligation. The paper outlines then the manner of a control, so that the financial controller does not impose financial penalties upon the enterprise being controlled
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Control of concentration is one of the competences of the President of the Polish competition authority. The exercise of this competence is intended to prevent competition restrictions resulting from structural behaviors of entrepreneurs. A ‘significant restriction of competition’ is the premise examined during the adjudication process in matters related to the control of concentrations. There are no uniform tests that would allow a clear determination of the fulfillment of this premise. A significant restriction of competition is always analyzed in an individual case of an actual concentration
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The article discusses the issue of assessing the economic effects of a vertical concentration, with particular emphasis on the possibility of restricting access to the factor of production. An example of a concentration in the power sector was selected for the analysis – the takeover of EDF’s assets by the Polish Energy Group PGE. The issues raised above all relate to economic evidence that indicated the possibility of restricting access to the wholesale electricity market after the concentration of PGE and the EDF Group and to identify the unexplained factors in accordance with the Guidelines on the assessment of non-horizontal business combinations under the Council Regulation on the control of concentrations between undertakings.
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This article provides a concise description of the main competition problems related to the proceedings initiated by the European Commission against the Intel Corporation Inc., the world leader in the market for computer processors. The purpose of this article is to outline the proceedings up to now in the context of the use by dominant companies of conditional rebates, in particular loyalty rebates. Within the framework of this article, the author has assessed the ECJ’s judgment and noted both the positive and negative aspects of this ruling
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