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Council of the Office upheld the decision of the AMO, the Division of Cartels, on the infringement of obligation during an inspection

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On 19 December 2016 the Council of the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic (hereafter “the Council of the Office”) issued a decision No. 2016/SP/R/2/055 which objectively upheld the conclusions of the first instance decision according to which the undertaking PP & P Co., s.r.o., infringed the obligation set by the provisions of the Article 22a, paragraph 7, letter b of the Act on Protection of Competition.
 
The undertaking PP & P Co., s.r.o., committed the infringement of the Act on 13 April 2015 when during the inspection of the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic (hereafter “the Office”) at the premises of the undertaking did not cooperate with the staff of the Office, did not provide the necessary cooperation to them and did not allow them to properly conduct the inspection. Specifically, the representative of the undertaking PP & P Co. did not respect the instruction of the Office not to communicate about the ongoing inspection at the premises of the undertaking at the time the Office was not yet provided all the facilities it intended to examine. The risk of damage of the evidence sought arose by this conduct.
 
The Office imposed a fine in the amount of EUR 1 077,17, which the Council of the Office considered as inappropriate for the committed infringement of the provision of the Act and reduced the fine to EUR 250 which is approximately 0,2 % of the turnover of the undertaking in the year 2014.
 
The decision of the Council of the Office came into force on 27 December 2016.
 
In this relation the Office states that the power to inspect is one of the most important investigative powers of the Office, which enables it to find infringements of the provisions of the Act on Protection of Competition.
 
The purpose of the provisions on the obligations of the undertaking to cooperate with the Office during the inspection and the corresponding provisions on the sanctions for infringement of those obligations is to ensure the protection of competition and the respect to the Office by the side of investigated subjects.