New Procedural Notices of the Czech Office for the Protection of Competition: Leniency, Settlement, and Alternative Problem Resolution

• Main Authors: Petra Joanna Pipková, Ivo Šimeček
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Warsaw 2015-08-01
• Series: Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies
• Online Access: https://yars.wz.uw.edu.pl/images/yars2015_8_11/185.pdf

In connection with the 2012 amendment of the Czech Act on the Protection of Competition (hereafter, APC), reported in YARS last year1, the Czech Office for the Protection of Competition (hereafter, Office) issued three new procedural noticesin November 2013: Notice of the Office for the Protection of Competition of 4 November 2013 on the application of Section 22ba of the Act on the Protection of Competition (hereafter, Notice on the Leniency Programme), Notice of the Office for the Protection of Competition of 8 November 2013 on the Procedure aimed at the speeding up of administrative proceedings by meansof the application for a reduction of the fine according to Section 22ba(2) of the Act on the Protection of Competition (hereafter, Notice on the Settlement Procedure), and Notice of the Office for the Protection of Competition of 8 November 2013 on alternative resolutions of competition problems and on the dismissal of the matter (hereafter: Notice on Alternative Problem Resolutions)2. This contribution analyzes the aforementioned three new procedural soft-law instruments. The new notices react to changes brought about by the 2012 Amendment of the APC (hereafter, 9th APC Amendment) in Czech competition procedure. The 9th APC Amendment incorporated the leniency programme and the settlement procedure into the APC for the first time in the history of Czech competition law. Furthermore, the amendment introduced the instrument of the so-called prioritisation, i.e. the possibility for the Office to dismiss a matter in caseswhere there is no public interest in its prosecution.