EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

Prague, Czechia

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

CJEU, Akzo Nobel Chemicals Ltd and Akcros Chemicals Ltd v Commission joined cases T-125/03 and T-253/03). The Court has also stated that a competitor’s legal communication with an independent lawyer is protected. Protected, but there is no communication between the in-house lawyer, even if that in-house lawyer has the authority of a lawyer in another jurisdiction (Judgment of the CJEU, French Republic v European Commission C-601/11). An important factor is the issue of an independent and impartial approach. In order to be protected, documents or information must in themselves constitute correspondence with an independent lawyer or be internal notes relating to such communications (Judgement of the ECJ, AM & S Europe 155/79). The rights of the defence should be preserved at all stages of the control, with the possibility of defending oneself against any unlawful interference. A breakthrough decision in the Czech Republic was the case of the inspection in the case of Delta Bakery. The result of many court decisions was an amendment to the Act on the Protection of Competition in Section 21f para. 7 of Act No. 143/2001 Coll., when the possibility of filing an action for an unlawful act during the inspection of the competition authority in establishments was enacted. 3.7 Evaluation phase At this stage, the evidence seized and whether there are grounds for continuing or initiating administrative proceedings should be evaluated. In the case of securing bulky evidence that could not be evaluated at the inspection site itself, such as a large set or data equipment. The evaluation should be relatively fast because if the results indicate that an inspection needs to be repeated, the delay between inspections should not be excessively long, for example a whole year. This also applies in the case of the seizure of evidence showing anti-competitive conduct other than that which gave rise to the inspection itself. 4. Conclusion In addition to the principles of legality and legitimacy of the intervention itself, on-the-spot inspections carried out in the field of competition law should also be proportionate in substance and purpose in terms of the reasons for the inspection and its own conduct. These limits apply to all three phases of the verification visit. The proper conduct of the verification visit leads to the maintenance of legal certainty for the parties to the administrative proceedings concerned. Dawn reids should be similar in all Member States and should respect the minimum common procedural standards in force in the European Economic Area. Inspection, as well as its actual scope, should be based on the principles of proportionality and proportionality.

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