Collusive tendering or bid rigging is an illegal activity by which bidders create the illusion of competition while secretly agreeing among themselves which of them will win the tender. By choosing the best price, the purchasers, who are frequently national and local governments, are forced to pay more than they would otherwise pay in conditions of fair competition. Bid rigging is one of the most severe competition law infringements which causes damage to taxpayers given that public procurement participates to a substantial extent in the economy of each country. It typically accounts for 12% of the gross domestic product, which […]
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The Serbian Competition Authority (“SCA”) recently focused on unapproved mergers i.e. gun-jumping. The most recent “victim” of the SCA’s investigations into gun-jumping was Fortenova Grupa d.d. (“Fortenova”), with the only previous undertaking fined for gun-jumping being Prointer IT Solutions. Meanwhile, Ernst & Young are also being investigated under the same allegations. Is this simply a witch hunt or is there something going on here? Gun-jumping (not only during the Olympics) Before we get into the heart of the matter let`s define what gun-jumping is. In competition law, gun-jumping is a concept pertaining to an unlawful pre-merger and pre-clearance coordination of […]
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Gecić Law successfully represented the Bar Association of Serbia in a positive resolution of a landmark antitrust probe in Serbia (link). On May 24, 2018, the Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition, the national competition authority (“Commission”) dropped a four-year antitrust investigation into the Bar Association of Serbia – Advokatska komora Srbije (“AKS”), without taking any further action (link). The Commission’s decision puts to rest one of the longest standing investigations in recent history against AKS, a more than 9000-lawyer strong organization and one of the largest bar associations in the Balkans. In 2014, the Commission opened a probe against […]
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