Malgorzata Krasnodebska-Tomkiel and Grzegorz Materna were speakers at a seminar on selected aspects of the Public Procurement Act amendment of 22.06.2016, held at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Grzegorz discussed amendment provisions serving to guarantee the conditions for competition development in the public procurement sector. Malgorzata demonstrated how in-house contract awards constrain the conditions for competition development and offered arguments in favour of the UOKiK President’s intervention should the contracting authority abuse the in-house contract awarding procedure.

Malgorzata and Grzegorz took part in a workshop on the amendment of Competition Law and the related implementation of the Private Enforcement Directive. Malgorzata presented on “The Private Enforcement Directive and its Impact on Polish and European Case Law”, whereas Grzegorz talked about the particulars of proceedings before the OCCP President.

An article by Grzegorz Materna, titled “The Polish Competition Authority Fines a Professional Association for Anticompetitive Conduct Aimed at the Governmental Treatment of the Infertility Program (Association of Medical Centers)”, was published in the e-Competitions Bulletin, November 2016, Art. N° 81975.

Ms Krasnodebska-Tomkiel participated in debate In- House Orders: Pros & Cons organized by the editorial board of Rzeczpospolita, a Polish daily newspaper. Attending the debate were officials representing: the Ministry of Development; the Polish Parliament, and the Supreme Chamber of Control. Also taking part in the debate were representatives of the local governmental and private sectors. The discussion concerned the effects of the newly-introduced communal waste management regulations. Experts stressed the need to closely examine cases concerning the commissioning of waste management projects to community partnerships or SPVs without the use of a tender procedure.

Our law firm was represented by Malgorzata Krasnodebska-Tomkiel and Dorothy Hansberry-Bieguńska at the European Competition Forum organized in Italy by Compass Lexecon.

The Hansberry Tomkiel law firm was represented by Ms Krasnodebska-Tomkiel and Mr Materna at a seminar organized by the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The seminar was devoted to the subject of ‘public compensation’ – increasingly often used by the Chairman of UOKiK in his administrative decisions to order compensation of aggrieved consumers for financial losses suffered as a result of wrongful conduct by business operators.
Grzegorz Materna presented a paper entitled, “Is Public Compensation a New Tool of the Effective Elimination of Undesirable Market Behaviours at the Disposal of the UOKiK Chairman?”. Ms Krasnodebska-Tomkiel moderated a panel discussion on the subject among private practitioners and UOKiK officials

Ms Krasnodebska-Tomkiel attended the 21st Annual EU Competition Law and Policy Workshop organized by the Department of Law of the European University Institute. The conference was devoted to the subjects of antitrust legislation and competition protection policy. The 2016 conference,“Stronger NCAs – Procedures, Powers, Prospects”, considered the role of antitrust authorities in the implementation and enforcement of European competition law. Speakers included former and current heads of EU Antitrust Authorities. Ms Krasnodebska presented the Polish view through the prism of the Polish Competition Act’s January 2015 amendment, which gave the Chairman of the Polish Authority broader powers in enforcing the Competition Act.

A discussion about the 2015 Amendment of the Polish Competition Act took place on April 19th, 2016 at Warsaw Sheraton Hotel. Representatives of the Competition and Consumer Protection Court, Consumer Federation, law firms and the business sector drew on their own experience in discussion the impact of the introduced changes. The discussion was co-organized by Hansberry-Tomkiel law firm and Gazeta Bankowa, a Polish monthly publication.

Ms Krasnodebska-Tomkiel and Mr Materna took part in a seminar organized by the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The seminar, “Essential Changes in Consumer Protection in Light of the of August 5th, 2015 of the Competition and Consumer Protection Act and Certain other Acts (Journal of Laws 2015, pos. 1634)” was moderated by Mr Materna. Ms Krasnodebska-Tomkiel gave a presentation entitled “A New Form of Inspection in Cases of Violation of Collective Consumer Interests” (by means of what is referred to as a “secret customer”).

Ms Krasnodebska-Tomkiel was a panellist in the Common Electricity and Gas Market and “the Construction of a Competing Power Sector in Poland” at the 23rd meeting of the EuroPOWER Energy Conference.

Ms Krasnodebska-Tomkiel was a guest of a discussion meeting of the Economic Law Study Circle. The discussion concerned the January 2015 amendment of the Polish Competition and Consumer Protection Act.

Ms Krasnodebska-Tomkiel and Mr Materna participated in a workshop concerning the protection of the rights of business operators under the competition law. Ms. Krasnodebska-Tomkiel spoke about the implementation of the Private Enforcement Directive in the EU and Poland Mr. Materna spoke about the rights and duties of a business operator in the capacity of a party in antitrust investigative proceedings. Among other topics, his presentation focused on the extent of the duty of undertakings to make accessible to the Chairman of UOKiK corporate information and documents. He also spoke about securing from the access by unauthorized parties of information and material containing business secrets submitted to UOKiK.

Malgorzata Krasnodebska-Tomkiel gave a presentation at the First Congress of the Self-Employed organized by the Warsaw School of Economics. Its title was “The Terms of Doing Business in Poland Against the European Background – Competition Protection”.

Malgorzata Krasnodebska-Tomkiel and Grzegorz Materna took part in the 3rd International Conference on the Reform of the Public Procurement Regulations – Strategic Public Procurements, organized by the Lodz University Faculty of Law and Administration. They presented a paper titled “Ensuring the Conditions for the Development of Competition in the Light of the Public Procurement Law Amendment dated 22 June 2016 – Selected Issues”.

An article by Malgorzata Krasnodebska-Tomkiel and Dorothy Hansberry-Bieguńska, titled “Competition Litigation, Poland”, was published in the International Comparative Legal Guide to: Competition Litigation 2017, Global Legal Group Ltd.

An article written by Malgorzata Krasnodebska-Tomkiel and Grzegorz Materna in collaboration with Dr. Hab. Krystyna Kowalik-Bańczyk, professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, titled “Administrative Competition Procedure and Judicial Review in Poland” appeared as part of a book edited by C.I. Nagy named The Procedural Aspects of the Application of Competition Law: European Frameworks – Central European Perspectives, European Law Publishing, Groningen 2016. The article was published within the framework of a collective work edited by Professor Csongor István Nagy, itself a part of a project organized by Comenius University in Bratislava, Palacký University Olomouc, Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and HAS CSS Federal Markets “Momentum” Research Group.

The publication of a monograph by Grzegorz Materna, titled “Bid Rigging in Antitrust and Criminal Law”, Wolters Kluwer Publishers, Warsaw 2016. The work provides an analysis of the model of multi-track liability for bid rigging – antitrust and criminal – adopted in the Polish legal system.

An article co-authored by Malgorzata Krasnodebska-Tomkiel, Dorothy Hansberry-Bieguńska and Grzegorz Materna, titled “Leniency Programs in Polish and U.S. Competition Law and the Availability of Leniency Materials to Persons Pursuing Compensatory Claims in Cartel and Competition Restriction Agreements”, was published in the Online Antitrust and Regulatory Quarterly (iKAR) no. 5(05)/2016.

An article by Malgorzata Krasnodebska-Tomkiel, titled “An Amendment of the Competition and Consumer Protection Act – the Essence and Expected Effects of Main Changes”, was published in Monitor Prawniczy no. 11/2016.

An article written by Grzegorz Materna, titled “The Activities of an Online Travel Booking System Administrator and the Concerted Practice of the Travel Agencies Using the System – a Commentary on the Judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-74/14 “Eturas” and Others against the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania”, was published in Przeglad Ustawodawstwa Gospodarczego no. 06/2016.

Dorothy Hansberry Bieguńska and Grzegorz Materna joined a panel of speakers and presented an update of EU competition developments. The program was moderated by Hays Gorey, Jr., of GeyerGorey LLP. Robert E. Connolly, of GeyerGorey LLP’s Philadelphia office presented an update of US competition developments, and Masayuki Atsumi, of Mori Hamada & Matsumoto in Tokyo, well presented an update on Asian developments.
Dorothy Hansberry-Bieguńska spoke about the January 20th, 2016 judgment of the Court of
Justice of the European Union concerning the relationship between EU and Member States
leniency programs (Case C-428/14, DHL Express (Italy) Srl, DHL Global Forwarding (Italy) SpA v. Autoritŕ Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato). Among other things, the Court made clear that there is no one-stop-shop for leniency applications in the EU. Dorothy Hansberry-Bieguńska also discussed the Competition and Consumer Protection Policy adopted by Poland’s Council of Ministers in September 2015. The new Policy directs the Polish Competition Authority to apply an economic-based approach to investigating vertical agreements between non-competitors.
Grzegorz Materna spoke about the January 21st, 2016 judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The judgment was issued in response to a request from the Lithuanian Supreme Administrative Court for a preliminary ruling (Case C-74/14, “Eturas” UAB and Others v Lietuvos Respublikos Konkurencijos Taryba). The Court of Justice drew out principles according to which the conduct initiated by the administrator of an online booking platform in order to influence (by technical reasons) the prices of services offered by the travel operator companies using that platform can be a concerted practice between the administrator and the operators. Grzegorz Materna explained that the Court of Justice’s judgment clarified the factors necessary to attribute a company’s participation in a concerted practice when:

• The challenged conduct is initiated unilaterally by a specific ‘coordinator’ of the businesses of companies who compete with each other,
• The specifics of a unilateral act suggest that it is the visible effect of collusion, even when nearly all of the material evidence of an infringement is the evidence of the unilateral act.

“Competition restriction as a factor limiting the application of Article 6 (1)(7) of the Polish Competition Act to agreements affecting the course of a tender procedure”, in: T. Skoczny (ed.) Competition Law. 25 Years, Warsaw 2016 (by Grzegorz Materna)

“Conditions for the initiation of inspections or searches in antitrust cases conducted pursuant to the Polish Competition Act and the requirements of Article 8 of the European Charter of Human Rights”, in: iKAR, 8(4)/2015 (by Grzegorz Materna)

“The Polish Competition Authority imposes sanctions for retail price maintenance in the wristwatch distribution sector while announcing a new economic-based approach to vertical agreements (Swatch)”, published in: e-Competitions Antitrust Case Law Bulletin, January 2016, Art. N° 77426 (by Grzegorz Materna)