The Bulgarian competition authority published its annual 2022 report, with a significant delay. Repeatedly, the numbers confirm that the competition commission (CPC) still focuses its practice and resources in areas falling outside the traditional competition and antitrust. The CPC opened total 873 cases and issued 651 decisions, including 778 relating to public procurement (538 decisions), […]
Last month the European Court of Justice rendered its judgement in case C‑680/20 (Unilever) extending the scope of dominant companies’ liability for anti-competitive conduct of their distributors and providing useful insight as to the applicability of the Intel case to exclusive dealing. The Italian competition authority found that Unilever had abused its dominant position on the […]
A common practice in distribution chains across the EU and in Bulgaria, dual distribution refers to a situation where a supplier sells goods or services in direct competition with its distributors, i.e. to retailers or end clients. Some of the competition concerns stemming from the ‘dual nature’ of the supplier-distributor relationship in these cases were […]
Today the European Court of Justice rendered its preliminary ruling in case C-882/19 (Sumal) finding that a victim of an infringement of EU competition law is entitled to claim damages from a subsidiary of the infringing company. To that end, the claimant must prove that the subsidiary and the parent company formed an economic entity […]
On 11 June 2020 the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC or the Commission) adopted Decision No. 466/11/06.2020 (the Decision) imposing fines in a total amount of c. BGN 4,410,000 (c. EUR 2,250,000) on CEZ Bulgaria, CEZ Electro Bulgaria and CEZ Razpredelenie Bulgaria (collectively CEZ) for abuse of a stronger bargaining position under Art. 37a […]
Following the GDPR hassle, next on the line for companies conducting business online within the EU comes the Regulation (EU) 2018/302 on addressing unjustified geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination based on customers’ nationality, place of residence or place of establishment within the internal market (the “Regulation”). The Regulation shall apply as from 3 December […]
We are very pleased of our firm’s new recognition and excellent client feedback for the quality work of our Partners Biliana Shagova, Aldin Shenkov and Pavel Hristov in the 2018 editions of the international legal directories The Legal 500 EMEA and Chambers Global. Our clients praise Biliana Shagova as ‘extremely diligent‘. Pavel Hristov is ‘client […]
