UOKiK, Poland's competition authority, is to consult market
participants on its planned changes to competition law.
It has issued an official notice of works on amending the
Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2007 in the following
ways:
- introducing a two-stage merger control procedure, in which simple cases would be resolved within 30 days from notification and cases that are more complex or raise doubts would be resolved within four months;
- introducing a procedure for the authority to inform the notifying party of competition concerns relating to a planned concentration, or of a predicted negative decision, while proceeding are still ongoing;
- boosting the leniency programme, e.g. by decreasing the fine imposed on a cartel member for participating in that cartel if it informs the authority of its participation in another cartel;
- enabling businesses to submit voluntarily to a penalty, which would involve giving up the right to appeal against the authority's decision in return for a 10% reduction in its fine;
- allowing the authority to indicate specific actions to be taken by a business to remedy the effects of its illegal conduct;
- imposing financial penalties on individuals responsible for illegal conduct.
All proposed amendments must be adopted by the Polish Government and Parliament before they will come into force.
This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq
Law-Now information is for general purposes and guidance only. The information and opinions expressed in all Law-Now articles are not necessarily comprehensive and do not purport to give professional or legal advice. All Law-Now information relates to circumstances prevailing at the date of its original publication and may not have been updated to reflect subsequent developments.
The original publication date for this article was 30/03/2012.
