Competition Law

Complying with the rules of competition law is one of the company’s fundamental duties in accessing the labour market, since the breach of competition rules can lead to very severe consequences for the infringer (both very high fines and classification to the so-called black list, which can prevent the company from taking part in public procurement procedures.)

We offer our clients comprehensive services in the area of competition law. Among others, we advise them on the regulation of contractual relationships with their contractual partners (suppliers, buyers, distributors) and on the regulation of cooperative relationships with their competitors (e.g. joint bids of companies that are otherwise competitors; specialization, joint production, joint purchase agreements, i.e. counselling in so-called horizontal relationships). We advise clients also with regard to the compliance of their operation with competition law. We prepare internal documents for the conduct of company employees in their everyday operation, which complies with competition law, carry out trainings and education courses on competition law for employees and advise on rebate policy and bonus system.

In addition, our firm has vast experience in counselling clients on competition-law aspects of M&As. Among others, we advise clients on the organisation of due diligence reviews that complies with competition law, on permissible competition law restrictions in transaction documents, we advise and represent clients in merger notifications with the Slovenian Competition Protection Agency, as local counsels we participate in merger notifications with the European Commission and coordinate notifications in several foreign jurisdictions.

We advise and represent clients in proceedings before the Slovenian Competition Protection Agency, before the European Commission, as well as before courts (among others, in procedures due to private legal antitrust damages actions).

We also possess extensive knowledge and experience in the field of state aid regulations. We assist state-controlled clients in ensuring the compliance with state aid regulations (e.g. capital increases by state companies, privatisation procedures), and advise clients that are state aid beneficiaries in order to eliminate the risks of incompatible state aid allocation. We also have vast experience in advising and representing clients in informal and formal investigation procedures by the European Commission due to suspected allocation of unlawful state aid as well as in representing clients before the General Court in Luxembourg.