TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROJECT COMPLETED IN KOSOVO WITH THE ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
To mark the end of a nearly five-year European Union (EU) technical assistance project in Kosovo, an EU-initiated roundtable was held in Pristina. It was attended by representatives of the authorities responsible for the implementation of the project, including experts from the Competition Council, the beneficiaries of the project – the Kosovo...
FOUR PRIORITY SECTORS UNDER THE COMPETITION COUNCIL'S SPOTLIGHT
The Competition Council has decided to focus its attention on the energy, health (including pharmaceuticals), retail trade and digital markets sectors in 2024.
Today, the Seimas has adopted amendments to the Law on Competition and the Law on Local Self-Government, which allow municipalities to enter into in-house contracts with the companies they control and to transfer the management of municipal real estate to them without a competitive procedure.
Today, the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania, the Seimas, approved amendments to the Law on Competition, which aim to create conditions for more effective enforcement of competition and state aid rules in Lithuania. Among the most important changes, is the rules on recovery of unlawful and/or incompatible with the EU internal market state...
On February 22, 2023, the Lithuanian, German and Romanian authorities partnering under the EU Twinning project “Legal and Enforcement Support to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU)” met to discuss the results that they have achieved during the project implementation. Over 30 representatives of relevant authorities of Ukraine, including...
The Lithuanian competition authority Konkurencijos taryba has found that the Lithuanian Pharmacy Association (LPA) and 8 pharmaceutical companies agreed on the margins of reimbursable medicines. The infringement of the Law on Competition and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union resulted in more than EUR 72 million in fines.
Today the Lithuanian Government adopted a resolution approving the description of the procedure for setting fines for infringements of the Law on Competition. A more detailed regulation of the methodology for setting fines, which will apply from 1 May 2023, will result in fewer preconditions for disputes in courts concerning the amount of fines...
Having conducted the annual impact assessment of its activities, the Lithuanian competition authority Konkurencijos taryba calculated that direct expected benefits to consumers over the period of 2019–2021 amounted to an average of EUR 15.6 million per year and exceeded the authority’s annual budget 6.2 times.
In the strategic plan 2022 the Lithuanian Konkurencijos taryba has identified four priority sectors. The authority is planning to monitor more closely competition restrictions in the labour market, health sector (including pharmaceuticals), retail trade and e-commerce, as well as to take active enforcement and advocacy actions.
The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania (Court) announced that the Lithuanian competition authority should recalculate the fines for the companies Būsto aplinka and Mano Būsto priežiūra which obstructed the inspection conducted by the authority’s officials.
With the numbers of companies moving their businesses online growing, the problems related to digital markets are becoming increasingly relevant for national competition authorities. It is a task for each competition authority to continuously strengthen its investigative capacities and technological skills, as well as develop close cooperation...
On November 1 amendments to the Law on Competition of the Republic of Lithuania enter into force. These amendments are in line with the ECN+ Directive intended to empower the competition authorities of Member States to be more effective enforcers and ensure the proper functioning of the internal market. More specifically, the Directive aims to...