SUPPORT FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ANIMAL BREEDING MEASURES WAS DISCRIMINATING THE COMPANY

Having assessed, in its meeting the findings of the conducted investigation the Competition Council passed a decision concerning the compliance of actions of the Commission for the subsidized measures in animal breeding of the State Animal Breeding Supervision Service under the Ministry of Agriculture with the requirements of Art. 4 of the Law on Competition. It has been concluded that the decision adopted on 11 May 2004 by the Commission for the subsidized measures in animal breeding concerning the granting of the support to animal breeding measures was actually discriminating other individual undertakings which therefore could have been placed at a competitive disadvantage and constituted an infringement of the provisions of the Law on Competition. According to Art. 4 of the Law on Competition, public and local authorities shall be prohibited from adopting legal acts or other decisions which grant privileges to or discriminate against any individual undertakings or their groups and which bring about or may bring about differences in the conditions of competition for competitors in the relevant market, except where the difference in the conditions of competition cannot be avoided when the requirements of the laws of the Republic of Lithuania are complied with.

The investigation was initiated in January 2005 on the basis of the application lodged by UAB Litgenas. The applicant indicated that it had applied for a subsidy over LTL 500,000 as a support measure for the operations and services related to animal breeding. The Commission for the subsidized measures in animal breeding, having examined the applications, refused to grant the support to UAB Litgenas. SE Šiaulių regiono veislininkystė providing actually comparable services was granted the subsidy.

The investigation focused on the examination of circumstances related to the passing of the decision by the above Commission. It was determined that UAB Litgenas was refused the support as being a private company without a share of State equity, besides, the company was not involved in the national animal breeding program. As indicated by the State Animal Breeding Supervision Service under the Ministry of Agriculture, the SE Šiaulių regiono veislininkystė has been and is currently involved in the national animal breeding program, i.e., it breeds and conducts the assessment of the breeder bulls raised in Lithuania, the enterprise also collects and sells the semen of such bulls in the domestic market, while UAB Litgenas, was mostly using the breeder bull semen imported from abroad. The Competition Council however, having examined the provisions of the Law on Animal Breeding and other regulations of the Republic of Lithuania governing the breeding activities, could not identify any basis for the acknowledgement that differences in the competitive conditions could not be possibly avoided when complying with the requirements of the Lithuanian legislation and the enforcement of such requirements could justify the discrimination of UAB Litgenas.