J. Sroczyński for WuW No. 9/1997 – An Overview of Polish Competition Law

This is the first report on Poland. It reviews developments concerning the Law of February 24, 1990 on Counteracting Monopolistic Practices (the “Law”) which is enforced by the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (the “OCCP”). Appeals against decisions of the President of the OCCP are heard by the Antimonopoly Court and by the Supreme Court which has final appellate jurisdiction.

The Law prohibits monopolistic practices, such as price fixing, market sharing, abuse of a dominant market position and charging excessively exorbitant prices by monopolistic entities. A dominant market position is defined as the position of a business entity which does not encounter significant competition in national or local market, and is presumed to exist at a 40 percent market share level.

The Law also contains a merger control part, while an equivalent of the European CO Form has been published as a secondary regulation. The financial threshold triggering the obligation to notify the President of the OCCP is ECU 5 million of the annual, combined (group), worldwide turnover. In the case of share acquisitions, the triggering premise is also the achieving or exceeding of any of the following voting rights threshold: 10%, 25%, 33% and 50%. Acquisitions of organized assets are notifiable if their value is in excess of ECU 2 million. The Law has adopted the “effect principle”, whereby extra-territorial mergers are notifiable to the President of the OCCP in the event they have or may have an effect in Poland. Since introduction of the merger control provisions in 1995, some three prohibiting decisions were issued by the President of the OCCP, but none of them has become final as yet.

Generally, the Law follows the examples of other European antimonopoly legislations. In accordance with the Europe Agreement between Poland and the European Union, a cooperation has been established between the OCCP and D. G. IV. In addition, the OCCP has published several guidelines (such as the patent and know-how guidelines) which are largely patterned after the respective European Union regulations.

J. Sroczyński, Wirtschaft und Wettbewerb. Developments in national competition law, No. 9/1997.