The Hungarian Competition Authority (HCA) published its draft report of an accelerated sector inquiry on the Hungarian brick market. The interested and affected parties have only 8 days to submit comments to the authority's draft report. As a main finding, the HCA has not found reasons to conduct an antitrust proceeding on the relevant market. It has, however, made recommendations for consumers and also for the government.

Some time ago, a merger control case I was working on, involving the gambling sector (among other things), raised an interesting problem regarding the role of competition law.

The European Commission has issued a decision finding that Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche colluded in an agreement to infringe EU competition rules and fining them a total of €875 million.

The standard approach in cases involving abuse of dominant position implies that the competition authority determines the market influence of the company due to which it can operate in the relevant market to a significant extent independently of other market participants and, provided that the company has a dominant position, whether its actions result in abuse of such position. The standard approach came naturally in markets that are geographically and economically limited. The core of the principle is that the public authority reacts ex-post (after the event) to abuses, by imposing the obligation to terminate anticompetitive practices or imposing penalties for prohibited behaviour.

Recently, the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (Polish name: Urząd Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów “UOKiK”) announced the initiation of antimonopoly proceedings in connection with the suspected coordination of actions by the Polish Basketball League and its member clubs against their players. The aim of the collusion was, among other things, to agree the terms of termination of players' contracts and to withhold payment of their salaries.

According to its recently published annual report, the Office for the Protection of Competition of the Czech Republic (the "Office") plans a thorough investigation of the pharmaceutical sector, in terms of compliance with both competition and public procurement rules.