EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

Prague, Czechia

indicate that there is no clear evidence that effective competition policy (developed institutions) discourages foreign direct investment (De Oliveira, Hochstetler and Kalil, 2001). During the last pandemic period, competition law lost its edge in its activities, especially in the part of state interventionism that was necessary as such during the COVID 19 pandemic crisis. Certain economic entities suffered certain damages due to governmental measures related to lockdown and due to the mentioned obstructions, there were disturbances in the markets within various sectors, so that the basic forces of supply and demand were disturbed, which of course had its implications for price adjustment and markets. For these reasons, the development of the economy and consequently in the interrelation of the state apparatus that regulates certain anomalies in the markets with its instruments and legislation was to some extent absent, which could lead to certain abuses in markets within different sectors but national and supranational bodies in coordination should, in the near future, bring some order and make market disruptions gradually stabilize. Regardless of the above, the capacity of state intervention will remain extremely important in the coming period in order to ensure transparent competition between economic entities in the national, regional, international and global markets. Some industries may never look the same after COVID-19 because their way of operating is changed and showed that there was some more efficient way for doing business. If large portions of temporary shocks become permanent, state aid will become more problematic for the sectors or firms that aim to preserve the status quo. Given the large fiscal strains on many countries, we submit that such support schemes for sectors that are unlikely to fully recover should not go ahead. We admit that such decisions are from a political perspective, particularly hard to sell if the respective sectors are labour-intensive and have powerful trade unions or industry lobbies (Motta and Peitz, 2020). Education of citizens about protection of their rights in the market is also very important precondition for upgrading competition law effectiveness in a country because citizen existing of two stream of competition law enforcement where we can find “ex-officio” option from one side and “ex-lege” option from the other. It means that very well educated citizens can recognize some breach of competition law that damaged their economic position and right and start different activities using instruments of nongovernment organisations to start the competition law cases in front of Competition Council or other responsible institutions. Effective private enforcement of competition law can create a culture of competition among citizens and a relief of pressure on competition authorities-a possibility to save their resources for more complex cases (Mantas, 2016). Additionally, corruption is very widespread problem in transition countries and different evidence states that that social phenomena has a very negative impact

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