In recent years several countries in Central and Eastern Europe have adopted legislation tasking competition agencies or other regulators with countering the "abuse of bargaining power" by big retailers or suppliers. In some countries this is regulated under private law along the lines of unfair trading practices. The special treatment of the food sector is a hot topic not just in central Europe as instances of abuse of contractual power against food producers have been identified. The need for state intervention is often justified by "food security" -- the need to protect consumers from disruptions to supply as well as the need to protect farmers. Critics argue that regulation of contractual relations in this sector proves inefficient and often produces results opposite to intentions. The debate and conflicting views make this an interesting research subject. Making this issue even more topical, the European Commission in April published a draft directive regarding “unfair trading practices in relations between enterprises in the food supply chain”, which is currently undergoing public consultations.
As part of the project, we have assembled an international team of leading academics from the region to take a closer look at where countries in the region stand in this area. (for the present list of participants please click on this link). Like in the earlier successful project regarding the implementation of the EU’s damages directive in CEE https://www.cars.wz.uw.edu.pl/ksiazki-38.html the first stage of this new initiative would be to prepare national reports from individual countries. We will publish them in a special publication by the end of this year. In the next stage, we will define a number of common horizontal issues requiring in-depth comparative analysis. We aim to publish the resulting articles in YARS and also organise an international conference to discuss the topic. If you would like to learn more about the project or join it, please contact project leader Adam Jasser, CARS deputy director at
