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Experts on competition law met at international conferrence in Bratislava

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On May 15, 2013 International Conferrence Current Trends in Competition Law was held in Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava. The conferrence was organized by the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic (hereinafter „the Office“ or „ the AMO SR”) in cooperation with Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava. The partner of conferrence was Havel, Holásek & Partners, atttorneys at law. Mária Patakyová from Faculty of Law opened the conferrence emphasizing the importance of cooperation between university and the Office and wishing success the conferrence, by which both institutions plan to establish tradition of international conferrences dedicated to competition law. Tibor Menyhart, the Chairman of the AMO SR welcomed the participants of conferrence on behalf of the Office. He said, that competition law merits more attention and it is this conferrence that has to form space for changing knowledge among experts and thus raise level of competition.

News in competition law were discussed in initiative panel of conferrence. Filip Kubík from DG Competition mentioned cases, European Commission and the European courts dealt with during last year. Michal Petr, Deputy Chairman of Czech Office for Protection of Competition explained the amendment of Czech competition law, some decisions of the Office and some verdicts of Czech courts relating to competition. Radoslav Tóth, Deputy Chairman of AMO SR presented new strategy of the Office aimed to build modern competition authority oriented on consumers.

The first thematic panel introduced by Zuzana Šabová from AMO SR, was devoted to material and formal concept of fundamental right to a fair trial in competition cases. Ján Mazák from Faculty of Law of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, the General Attorney of the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2006-2012 expressed his opinion on this topic. Besides general issues of fundamental right to a fair trial he focused on the way, how the the Court of Justice of the European Union in its latest judicature after signing up the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union fulfils the content of concept of fundamental right to a fair trial. Ivan Rumana from the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic reflected the reverse effect of judicature of the European Court of Human Rights in the field of competition mainly during inspections. Jiří Kmec from Havel, Holásek & Partners, looked at right to a fair trial in competition cases form the point of view of judicature of the European Court of Human Rights.

In panel focused on application of more economic approach in the field of vertical restraints it was interesting to compare the opinion of economist Milan Brouček from AMO SR and lawyer Robert Neruda from Havel, Holásek & Partners, who pointed out that practice doesn´t confirm this approach. Daniel Donath from Charles River Associates talked about resale price maintenance and Philip Marsden from British Institute of International and Comparative Law compared approaches to vertical restraints in US and Europe.

The final panel was devoted to liability of companies´ statutory bodies for antitrust infringements. Mária Patakyová from Law Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava focused in the frame of this topic on compensation of a damage, Peter Demčák from Havel, Holásek & Partners concentrated on the importance of prevention. Michaela Nosa from AMO SR explained main components of enforcement like sanction, individual sanctions, private complaints, leniency programm, settlement. Miroslav Uřičař from T-Mobile Czech Republic, a. s. discussed the topics from the point of view of corporate lawyer and introduced current risks in the area of e-communications.

The conferrence was the excellent chance for more than 200 participants from 5 countries

to change views and experience. The next conferrence on competition law will be held in May next year.