J. Sroczyński for WuW No. 3/2000 – New procedures for merger notification

The Council of Ministers has issued new secondary legislation on the merger notification procedures. The new regulation replaces the notification from introduced in 1995 (see WuW 12/97, p. 976). The new form is more detailed than the previous one, so more information will be required by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (“OCCP”) in connection with merger filings. For example, the authorities will now focus more on the activities of the respective groups to which the merging parties belong. On the other hand, in justified cases, in particular where the notified merger has an insignificant effect on the market, the parties may apply to the President of the OCCP to release them from the obligation to provide the full questionnaire, so that the submission could be limited to a necessary minimum. Another new solution is a change with respect to the parties who should notify a merger; only the actual participants are now obligated to make a filing and not anymore their parent companies. The new regulation entered into force as of December 29, 1999.

The OCCP and the Antimonopoly Court rendered several decisions and rulings against electricity companies throughout Poland. A common monopolistic practice comitted by those companies was to charge excessively high fees for admission of new clients into the existing power network and to demand that all new connecting structures and equipment, built at clients’ expense, be transferred to them free of charge. The authorities have imposed severe fines for the foregoing violations of the Antimonopoly Law.

J. Sroczyński, Wirtschaft und Wettbewerb. Developments in national competition law, No. 3/2000.