Discussion at the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic on rules simplifying and speeding up the control of concentrations

On June 19, 2013 the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic (hereinafter only „the Office“) organized the working meeting of Division of Concentrations´ staff with lawyers and enterprises representatives dealing with the issue of concentration control.

The Office introduced two important documents aimed at simplification of concentration assessment. The first document „Guidance laying down details of the calculation of turnover for fulfilling the notification criteria”. This guidance provides details and various specifics of calculation of turnover which are not included in the Act on Protection of Competition and other regulations. The fact whether the concentration is subject to control by the Office depends on the amount of turnover. Therefore, the Office takes advantage of the meeting to receive comments, objections, incentives and suggestions from the praxis which could be included into the final version of guidance. Presentation and discussion could help the professional public to familiarize with the issue and the Office can declare its standpoints and position. The other document introduced by the Office was revised „Guidance to pre-notification contacts“. The Office considers contacts with undertaking prior to official notification of concentration as useful part of assessment of contraction and based on recent experiences it recommends participants to the concentration to initiate the pre-notification contacts in all concentrations, even the seamless ones. Thus they may prevent the situations when the notification of concentration is not complete, identify the competition concerns resulting from the concentration or to ensure the transparency of the Office´s procedures. New guidance prefers the informal e-mail, telephone or personal communication and it simplifies the procedure. Working meeting on guidance belongs to one of the activities of the Office within „soft law“ reassessment.