Key Projects

Investigations

We assist Vodafone Romania with the challenge in court of the Competition Council’s decision finding a breach of Art. 6 of the Competition Law (abuse of dominant position) (2011 - ongoing)
We assisted Vodafone Romania in connection with the investigation initiated by the Competition Council regarding a potential breach of Articles 5(1) (anti-competitive agreements) and 6 (abuse of dominant position) of the Competition Law (2009 – 2011)
We assist Raiffeisen Bank with the challenge in court of the Competition Council’s sanctioning minutes issued in the context of the investigation regarding a potential breach of Article 5(1) of the Competition Law and of Article 101(1) TFEU by the companies active on the market of banking and inter-banking services in Romania (2010 - ongoing)
We assist Alico Societate de Administrare a unui Fond de Pensii Administrat Privat with the challenge in court of the Competition Council’s decision finding a breach of Article 5(1) (c) of the Competition Law and of Article 101(1) (c) TFEU – the first application by the Competition Council of Article 101 TFEU (2010 – ongoing)
We assisted Alico Societate de Administrare a unui Fond de Pensii Administrat Privat in connection with the investigation initiated by the Competition Council on the market for privately managed pension funds (2nd Pillar) with respect to a potential breach of Article 5(1) (c) of the Competition Law and of Article 101(1) (c) TFEU – the first application by the Competition Council of Article 101 TFEU (2008 – 2010)
We assist a major insurance company in connection with the investigation initiated by the Competition Council on the market for privately managed pension funds (2nd Pillar) with respect to a potential breach of Article 5(1) (a) of the Competition Law and of Article 101(1) (a) TFEU (2008 – ongoing)
We assist a distributor of pharmaceutical products in connection with the investigation initiated by the Competition Council regarding a potential breach of Article 5(1) of the Competition Law and of Article 101(1) TFEU by the members of the Association for the Distribution of Medicines (2010 – ongoing)
We assist in connection with the investigation initiated by the Competition Council regarding a potential breach of article 5 of the Competition Law by all WEEE management collective bodies and their members, on one hand, and on the other hand, a potential breach of article 5 of the Competition Law and of article 101 TFEU (anticompetitive agreements) by the producers members or contracting partners of ROREC association and the retailers involved in buy back marketing campaigns performed by ROREC (2010 – ongoing)
We assist a major company active in the banking sector in the Competition Council’s investigation regarding a potential breach of Article 5(1) of the Competition Law and of Article 101(1) TFEU by the companies active on the market of banking and inter-banking services in Romania (2010 – ongoing)
We assist a major producer active in the constructions sector in connection with the investigation initiated by the Competition Council regarding a potential breach of Article 6 of the Competition Law (abuse of dominant position) (2009 – ongoing)
We assist a major FMCG company in connection with the investigation initiated by the Competition Council with respect to a potential breach of Article 5 of the Competition Law in the consumer goods area (2005 – ongoing)
We assisted Unilever South Central Europe in successfully rejecting all allegations in the complaint filed by a former distributor, regarding cartel and abuse of dominant position (Article 5(1) (d) and (g) of the Competition Law – anticompetitive agreements to apply dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions, and to eliminate the distributor from the market; Article 6 (a), (c) and (f) of the Competition Law – abuse of dominance by imposition of prices and other commercial terms, by applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions, and by exploitation of the economic dependence situation) (2007)
We assisted Novo Nordisk Farma, the leading producer of medicine for the treatment of diabetes, in connection with the investigation conducted by the Competition Council on the insulin market (2006; no breach was found insofar as Novo Nordisk was concerned)
We assisted Lafarge Romania, one of the major cement producers in Romania, in connection with the cartel and abuse of collective dominance position investigation on the cement market - breach of Article 5(1) (a) (anticompetitive agreement/ concerted practice by price fixing) and of Article 6 (a) and (f) (abuse of collective dominance by imposition of prices and abuse of dominance by Lafarge by export below the production costs) (2005; the submissions on behalf of the company in reply to the statement of objections issued by the investigation team and the defense during the hearings have determined the Competition Council to reject the allegations of infringement of Article 6 (a) and (f); the challenge in court of the Competition Council’s decision regarding a breach of Article 5(1) (a) ended as a result of the company’s business decision, after having obtained the suspension of the obligation to pay the fine)

General competition advice

We assist Ford Romania, GDF Suez Energy Romania, Georgia Pacific Balkans, Genzyme, Lasselsberger, Microsoft Romania, PepsiCo, Romastru Trading, Strauss Romania, Unilever South Central Europe, Vodafone Romania, Weatherford International Eastern Europe SRL, Wrigley Romania in connection with various competition aspects of the day-to-day business / commercial relations / intended commercial mechanisms.

Economic concentrations

We assisted Radacini and Ford in designing the transaction by which Ford transferred to Radacini the business related to the distribution of spare parts for Daewoo motor vehicles, and in proceedings before the Competition Council (2011)
We assisted GTC, one of the largest real estate developers in Romania, and Ana Group, a large group active in hotel services, in obtaining the merger clearance for the establishment of a joint venture developing a real estate project (2011)
We assisted New Kopel Romania (part of Shlomo Group) in obtaining the merger clearance of the acquisition of a part of Ipso business in the automotive sector (2010)
We assisted HBO Central Europe Acquisitions, part of Time Warner Group, global leader in media and entertainment with businesses in television networks, filmed entertainment and publishing, in obtaining competition clearance for the Romanian part of the acquisition of HBO Central Europe (including, among other companies, HBO Romania) (2009-2010)
We assisted Société Générale Asset Management, subsidiary of Société Générale having as scope asset management activities, in connection with the competition aspects of the acquisition by SGAM Eastern Europe V Limited of MedLife SA, a leading provider of private medical services in Romania (2009)
We assisted Unilever South Central Europe, part of a major international group in the FMCG industry, in obtaining competition clearance for the acquisition of Napoca ice cream business as part of its entering on the ice cream market in Romania (2009)
We assisted Weatherford Holdings, a major international player in the oil field services, in the in-depth investigation initiated during the merger clearance process for the acquisition of an oil service company (2009)
We assisted Ford Motor Company in obtaining competition clearance for one of the largest M&A transactions in Romania in the last years: the EUR 732 million acquisition of a majority stake in the Romanian car producer Automobile Craiova (2008)
We assisted Vodafone Romania, one of the major mobile electronic communication services providers in Romania, in obtaining competition clearance for the acquisition of two dealership services networks (2008)
We assisted Petrom, the leading oil company in Romania, in obtaining competition clearance for the EUR 328.5 million acquisition of the oil service and maintenance business from Petromservice, the largest supplier on the market (2008)
We assisted Ranbaxy Laboratories, a large worldwide generic producer of pharmaceutical products, in a USD 324 million acquisition of one of the leading Romanian pharmaceutical producers, Terapia (2006)
We assisted Gaz de France, France’s leading natural gas supplier, in obtaining competition clearance for the acquisition of one of the two Romanian major natural gas distribution operators, Distrigaz Sud (2005)
We assisted OMV AG, the leading oil and gas group in Central Europe, in obtaining competition clearance for the EUR 1.5 billion acquisition of a controlling stake in the largest Romanian oil company, Petrom (2004)

Competition audits and trainings

We assist clients in various industry sectors in providing customized training on EC and Romanian competition law as well as on advisable conduct in dawn raid cases; preparing/ revising dawn raid manuals/ guidelines for their management and employees
We assist clients in various industry sectors in performing competition audits regarding their business practices and contracts, highlighting the competition risks and providing recommendations to mitigate the identified risks and to make any amendments necessary for compliance with Competition Law requirements

Clearance applications

We assisted Subaru Motors Trading in connection with the restructuring of the authorized dealers and service network, by providing advice on the structuring of the network from a competition perspective, drafting and filing the relevant agreements and application forms as well as providing representation before the Competition Council (2008)
We assisted Cadbury (Kandia) in connection with the investigation initiated for the approval of its distribution agreements, following the individual exemption application concerning territorial exclusivity prepared and filed with the Competition Council (2007-2008)
We assisted Kraft Foods Romania, the local subsidiary of a major international sweets producer, in connection with the investigation initiated on the chocolate market for the approval of Kraft’s distribution system, following the individual exemption application concerning territorial exclusivity prepared and filed with the Competition Council (2006-2008)
We assisted Petrom, the leading Romanian oil company, in connection with its request for clearance of a contract with Petromservice involving work-over, maintenance and other services to its upstream operations (2006)
We assisted Strauss Romania (at that time Elite Romania), leading Romanian coffee supplier, in connection with the notification and approval of its distribution agreements (2006)
We assisted General Motors in connection with the investigation initiated by the Competition Council concerning its network for car retail sales and post-sale service of such cars, following the negative clearance application prepared and filed with the Competition Council (2004-2005)
We assisted Vodafone Romania (at that time MobiFon), leading mobile electronic communications services provider, in connection with the notification and approval of its distribution agreements (2004-2005)

State aid

We assist clients in various industry sectors in connection with state aid matters, from establishing whether or not state aid can be provided to an undertaking under existing state aid schemes and conducting analyses of the possibility of certain ad hoc state aid being declared compatible to identifying the best course of conduct when suspecting that one of the client’s competitors was the beneficiary of an illegal state aid
We performed the analysis of state aid issues in connection with certain measures taken by the Romanian state prior to the privatization of BCR

Expertise