Development of the Judicial Review of the Decisions of the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic

Abstract

The article provides an analysis of the most important judgments rendered by Slovak courts at the end of 2010, in the course of 2011 and at the beginning of 2012. The article focuses solely on judicial review of decisions issued by the National Competition Authority of the Slovak Republic. Slovak courts dealt with several key issues concerning public enforcement of competition law such as: the application of the so-called ‘general clause’; competences of the Slovak competition authority in regulated sectors; and the application of the economic continuity test. Some of the conclusions resulting from these judgments may be considered disputable. It may be argued, in particular, that they may jeopardize the effective enforcement of competition law in the Slovak Republic. At the same time, the discussed jurisprudence has managed to clarify a number of key issues which had been subject to debate for a number of years. The article presents a review of these judgments, summarizes their key conclusions and considers their possible impact on the system of public enforcement of competition law in the Slovak Republic. The article is divided into a number of parts, each of which covers an individual case, the titles of which refers to the main topic that was under discussion in the presented judgment.