EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

Prague, Czechia

be also discussed below including further differences between subjective and objective limitation period. 3.1 Possible issues of the Czech statute of limitations Unlike Article 25(3) of Regulation 1/2003, the APC provides an exhaustive list of reasons for the interruption of the limitation period. Section 23(4) of the APC specifically provides that the limitation period is interrupted (only) by: a) notification of the initiation of the proceedings regarding the administrative offence; b) notification of the statement of objections; c) issuing a decision finding the perpetrator guilty of the administrative offence; d) assigning the case by the Commission or by another NCA to the Office for the Protection of Competition (OPC). This means that unlike in the proceedings conducted by the Commission, the limitation period cannot be interrupted on the basis of any other fact than those specifically stated by Section 23(4) of the APC and listed above. The OPC is thus realistically limited to only two kinds of actions it can take to interrupt the limitation period after it has already initiated the proceedings regarding the administrative offence since the administrative proceedings is initiated at the same time its initiation is notified (see Section 78(2) of Act No. 250/2016 Sb., on Liability for Administrative Offences and Proceedings Thereof, as amended (ALAO)) and since the OPC cannot decide on whether the case is assigned to it or not. Furthermore, both of these actions require the OPC to have already gathered substantial evidence to prove that an offence has actually been committed and to enable it to quantify the fine. That is because the notification of the statement of objections is according to Section 7(3) of the APC “a written notice in which the OPC shall state the essential facts of the case, their legal assessment and references to the main evidence contained in the administrative file” in which according to Section 21b of the APC the OPC “also informs the parties of the proceeding of the amount of the fine it intends to impose on the parties”. That means that in order for the OPC to be able to issue the notification of the statement of objections, it has to already have collected all the necessary evidence and other documents it needs in order to secure a conviction. It must have thus conducted all the necessary investigation the OPC needed to secure the evidence and other documents. This results in the fact that the OPC has no real way to initiate the interruption of the limitation period between initiation of the proceedings and finishing the investigation, which can in certain cases take many years in order to obtain the necessary evidence. The administrative offence can thus be time-barred even though the OPC properly conducts the

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