Part of Amendments to Competition Law Takes Effect on November 4

Part of amendments to the Competition Law adopted by the Parliament of Georgia in September 2020 has taken effect on November 4.

The amendments enhance the efficient execution of competition policy and comprise the following key directions. The legislative basis was consolidated to differentiate competences between the National Competition Agency and regulatory bodies. Consequently, regulatory offices will follow the united principles on key legal aspects of competition. Regulatory bodies remain obliged to ensure the execution of competition in their own sectors and explore issues related to regulated companies.

In all other cases, the Competition Agency is an authorized body. The amendments have determined a two-phase system to control the approbated concentrations simple and complex. For 25 days, the Agency appraises whether the concentration complies with the competitive environment. The concentration discussion fee is GEL 5,000. The dishonest competition will be fined by 1% of a company’s turnover. Sanctions get toughened for ignoring to send due information. Namely, it is obligatory to supply information in the monitoring process, and violation of this obligation results in a 1,000-GEL fine for physical bodies and 3,000-GEL fin for legal bodies. Amendments have also covered the exploration process and the 10-month period was extended to 18 months.

“With the support of the EU project, the parliament has worked on the legislative bill for 3 years. The bill was initiated by the committee of the sectoral economy and economic policy. The amendments fully meet the best European practices, DCFTA requirements and comprise key principles of the EU Competition Law. So far, the law comprised a number of systems and procedural shortcomings that were improved. We believe that the amendments will be made the competition execution policy more effective and result-oriented. The basic part of the amendments took effect on November 4, while institutional amendments of the competition will come into force later and the Competition Board will launch operation later”, Competition Agency Chairman Irakli Lekvinadze noted. We remind you that, in 2020, besides the bill of amendments to the Competition Law, the Parliament of Georgia also adopted the Law on Antidumping Measures in Trade and amendments to the Law on Procurements. All these norms must be executed by the Competition Agency.

In 2020, the Competition Agency finished a monitoring of 5 markets and 3 short-term processes. In one case, the Agency detected the misuse of domination position, 2 cases of dishonest competition. At this stage, the competition agency continues the exploration of 3 cases and 3 markets.