THE COURT RULING ENDED THE DISPUTE BETWEEN THE COMPETITION COUNCIL AND THE POLICE DEPARTMENT

The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania passed the final and non-appealable ruling whereby the Court dismissed the complaint of the Police Department under the Ministry of the Interior concerning the request to repeal the Resolution of 12 January 2006 of the Competition Council. By the Resolution concerned the Competition Council had recognised the provisions of the Commissar General of the Police Department authorising the public police security divisions to provide legal and natural persons’ property security services on contractual basis as contradicting Article 4 of the Law on Competition. By the Resolution of 2006 the Competition Council obligated the Police Department to bring the provisions of the Order in compliance with the Law on Competition. The judicial disputes in respect of the Resolution have been going on since 2006 and were finally terminated by the Ruling of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania.

Article 4 of the Law on Competition obligates public and municipal authorities to ensure the freedom of fair competition. Public and local authorities are 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. The Competition Council carried out the investigation with a view to determine whether the rights and additional authorisations granted to the security divisions of the Lithuanian police by virtue of legal provisions including the use of special means may possibly privilege such divisions as compared to other undertakings operating in the commercial security services market.

In accordance with the Law on Personal and Property Security other security services engaged in the same activity in the relevant market do not have such rights. While competing with other security services in the market for the personal and property security services, the security divisions of the Lithuanian police forces enjoy more extensive rights, such as the possibility to use the special police vehicles (cars with lights giving the priority on the road); the authority to enter residential and non-residential premises owned by natural and legal persons, stop the vehicles and have access to them, etc. Meanwhile other security services do not enjoy such rights. The Resolution of the Competition Council in 2006 concluded that the circumstances established in the course of the investigation in addition to other factors affect the quality of the service. As a result, the security divisions of Lithuania’s police forces and other security services, operating in the market for commercial personal and property security act in different competitive conditions.