EXPERTS OF KONKURENCIJOS TARYBA SHARED EXPERIENCE WITH COLLEAGUES FROM GEORGIA

The five-day visit of the staff of the Georgian National Competition Agency to Konkurencijos taryba concluded today, during which the guests got acquainted with the latest working practices of their Lithuanian colleagues, as well as visited several other Lithuanian institutions.

Welcoming the delegation, which was led by the Chairman of the Agency Irakli Lekvinadze, the Chairwoman of Konkurencijos taryba Jolanta Ivanauskienė greeted the very successful cooperation between the two competition authorities, which has been going on for almost a decade. She expressed hope that the sharing of the best practices would help the competition authority of the visiting country to ensure the compatibility of its legislation with the requirements of EU law, and to strengthen the culture of competition and consumer protection among representatives of the public and private sectors in Georgia.

The experts of Konkurencijos taryba presented the activities of the Authority in the areas of expert assessment of draft legislation and supervision of public entities, discussed the merger control and the most relevant cases of transactions examined by the institution. The foreign experts also visited the State Audit Office, where they were briefed on the functions, activities, and place of the supreme state audit institution in the public governance system, the principles of risk monitoring and the selection of audit topics.

On the second day of the visit, the representatives of Konkurencijos taryba provided the delegation with an overview of the examples of anti-competitive agreements examined by the Authority, as well as of the methodology of handling such cases. They also introduced the guests to investigations of abuse of dominance, presented the challenges of analysing excessive prices, shared an analysis of Lithuanian legal procedures and the relevant case law of the competition authorities and courts. The foreign delegation also heard more about the specifics of competition law litigation at the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania.

During a visit to the Public Procurement Office, representatives of Georgian National Competition Agency were introduced to the tools used to ensure competition in public procurement procedures, and specialists from the National Energy Regulatory Council briefed guests on the process of liberalisation of the electricity market, reviewed the research on electricity and gas markets. At the Special Investigation Service, the initiative of the Academy of Integrity was presented to the Georgian delegation and the importance of cooperation with the competition authority in detecting cartel agreements was discussed. Experts from the Communications Regulatory Authority presented the competition measures in the field of electronic communications and postal services, the latest Lithuanian case law in the field of electronic communications, and regulatory challenges in the railway sector. The visit of the delegation ended at the European Commission Representation in Lithuania, where they were introduced to the principles of the functioning of the European Union and current priorities.

The visit took place as part of the EU Twinning project implemented by Konkurencijos taryba, the State Consumer Rights Protection Authority and the Austrian Competition Authority, which aims to ensure that Georgia's competition law rules and procedures are aligned with the EU competition rules, to improve the capacity of the staff in both competition and consumer protection, and to make the Georgian Authority a competent and active partner of other European organisations.

The Twinning project, with a budget of €1.2 million, is funded by the EU.