CARS has prepared an Expert Opinion devoted to coordinated effects of horizontal concentrations. The Expert Opinion contains a legal analysis of chosen problems relating to the review by competition authorities of horizontal concentrations with coordinated effects. The Expert Opinion was authored by Profesor Maciej Bernatt and Professor Agata Jurkowska-Gomułka. The legal framework of the analysis extends over the EU and the Polish legal system of competition protection (legal provisions, decisional practice and jurisprudence). The analysis considered the axiology of concentration control rules, the conditions of a prohibition of horizontal concentrations, evidentiary standards in decisions prohibiting such concentrations as well as judicial control over such decisions.
The purpose of the Expert Opinion was to answer the question
- How are coordinated effects of concentrations defined in the decisional practice of competition authorities and in jurisprudence, which result in a significant impediment of competition under Article 18 uokik and Article 2(2) of EU Regulation 139/2004?
- What evidentiary standard should be deemed as applicable to the decisions of competition authorities?
- What characterises judicial control of decisions prohibiting a concentration issues by competition authorities?
