J. Sroczyński for WuW No. 6/2000 – Proceedings by the OCCP against the National Chamber of Pharmacists

The Antimonopoly Court has ruled that an agreement between parties to a share sale transaction, pursuant to which the company whose share are sold receives preferential treatement from the buyer in respect of all orders for the company’s services, may be regarded under the antimonopoly law as negligible and thus permissible, as long as the combined market share of the entities participating in such arrangement does not exceed 5% and the arrangement generally provides for better opportunities of market access.

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (“OCCP”) has initiated legal proceeding against the National Chamber of Pharmacists (“NCA”), accusing it of commiting monopolistic practices consisting in obligating pharmacists to apply minimal prices for medicines and in restricting the pharmacists’ freedom to grant fidelity rebates to their clients. Any departure from the foregoing rules has been declared by the NCA as constituting a violation of the professional ethics. The NCA is the trade organization to which all pharmacists should obligatorily belong pursuant to the peritent laws and which has the power to introduce the code of conduct of the pharmacist profession.

TP SA, the national telecom company, has agreed to decrease by 33% the prices charged for local and inter-zone connections. The decrease, effective April 1, 2000, comes as a result of the investigation conducted by the OCCP which had declared that the structure of TP SA’s pricing system violates the antimonopoly law.

J. Sroczyński, Wirtschaft und Wettbewerb. Developments in national competition law, No. 6/2000.