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Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition Imposes Obligations on Infostan

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In October 2015 Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition (the “Commission”) initiated an investigation against ”Infostan”, public utility company from Belgrade (“Infostan”) in order to determine whether it has abused its dominant position on the market.

Namely, in September 2015, without any previous consultations with Infostan service users, households which were not insured received Infostan bills which included a household insurance fee, charged by the Serbian insurance company Generali Osiguranje Srbija (“Generali”). Consequently, the Commission initiated an investigation assuming that Infostan allowed Generali to obtain business sensitive information regarding the number of customers who do not have household insurance, thus abusing its dominant position by discriminating other insurance companies.

During the course of proceedings, on 30 June 2016, Infostan submitted a proposal for suspension of the proceedings together with the list of commitments they offered to voluntarily undertake with the aim of eliminating possible violations of competition and of the Competition Protection Act. As a result, the Commission adopted a conclusion on 15 August 2016 which suspended the proceedings and imposed the following obligations on Infostan:

a) invoicing commercial services can be performed only with the written consent of Infostan service users;

b) withdrawal of commercial services from the bill must be done upon request of Infostan service users;

c) to refrain from disclosing to insurance companies information which households do not have household insurance;

d) to publish on the website detailed information on possible new services which may be invoiced to Infostan service users;

e) to submit to the Commission, within the next three years, all agreements concluded with third parties interested in commercial services provided by Infostan together with the request for the Commission’s opinion.

The Commission announced that in the course of the next three years it will monitor the execution of the imposed obligations and in the case of changed circumstances or non-performance of the commitments, the proceedings for determination of competition infringement shall be continued.

In its announcement the Commission elaborated that it considers that the imposed obligations eliminate the risk of performance of similar actions by market participants and prevent similar competition infringements in the future.

By Nikola Kasagic, Senior Associate, and Vanja Vujnoovic, Associate, SOG / Samardzic, Oreski & Grbovic