The 4th Petar Šarčević international scientific conference, to be held from 9-10 April in Rovinj, Croatia, is dedicated to EU and national competition and state aid rules. The efficient enforcement of competition and state aid rules is one of the keys to the successful economic development and stability of the EU internal market. While the Commission is charged with application of EU state aid rules, EU competition rules are applied by national enforcers as well. Proper and uniform application across Member States is thus one of the biggest challenges in this area of law. Particularly important in this regard are the national enforcers responsible for the direct application of EU competition rules.
Since the accession to the EU, Croatia shares with other Member States the responsibility to apply EU competition rules in an informed, competent and responsible manner. The novelties are many, as it is an ever-changing body of law constantly being adapted to new market situations. One of the most recent developments relates to recent adoption of the Directive on Antitrust Damages Actions creating as many opportunities as obstacles. With this in mind, the goal of the conference is to provide a platform to discuss recent case-law and legislative developments in the area of EU and national competition and state aid law with a special focus on the interaction between public and private enforcement. Selected topics are divided in two days: The first conference day is dedicated to public enforcement of competition and state aid rules, while the second conference day deals with specific issues of private enforcement.
The conference is addressed to stakeholders and entities participating in the process of application of competition law – judges, attorneys, in-house lawyers and other legal practitioners and most of all to market participants who may have suffered injury as a result of the breach of competition or state aid rules.
The topics on public enforcement include:
- Re-examination of the role of the General Court of the EU in shaping competition and state aid rules
- Recent EU and Croatian cases
- Investigating powers of European Commission and Croatian Competition Agency
- Leniency and settlement procedures
- Fines
- Novelties in state aid law.
The topics on private enforcement include:
- EU Directive on Antitrust Damages
- Disclosure of evidence
- Passing-on defence
- Class actions
- Jurisdiction and conflicts of laws in antitrust litigation.
