Regulation of competition rights in Latvia
Competition rights in Latvia are regulated by the Competition Law, which entered into force from the 1st of January 2002 with amendments, which entered into force by the 1st of May 2004. The control over observation of this law and its application is realised by the Competition Council.
The Competition Law establishes liability of market participants for prohibited agreements, abuse of dominant position and merger transactions.
The Competition Law establishes liability also for unfair competition, i.e., actions provided by market participants, as the result of which regulatory enactments or the fair practices of commercial activities are violated and which have created or could create a hindrance, restriction or distortion of competition.
The wholesale functionality of the Competition Law is ensured by Regulations issued by the Cabinet of Ministers, for example, providing procedure of calculation fines and how to submit notification on merger of market participants.
These Regulations also establish certain kinds of agreements (between liner shipping operators, providing international liner sipping transportations as well as between providers of domestic carriage by rail and by road), when these agreements are exempted from the prohibition of agreements prescribed by the competition law. These agreements are allowed without notification submitted to the Competition Council.
History of the Competition Law
- Competition Law of 18.06.1997
Entering into force of Competition Law adopted by Parliament 18.06.1997 on the 1st of January 1998 was an outstanding step forward, made towards approximation of Latvian legislation to the EU competition law. This law in its basics was composed taking into consideration the community legislation. At the same time its contents was influenced by actual situation in national economy of Latvia, national policy in competition protection as well as the law adopted on the 3rd December 1997, having its effect until the 31st of December 1997.
- Competition Law of 04.10.2001
To abolish some gaps detected in the existing Competition Law, a new Competition Law was elaborated and adopted on the 4th October 2001, which entered into force by the 1st of January 2002. This law provided lower notification threshold in the cases of merger of enterprises. Thus competitiveness of small and medium enterprises was stimulated and entrance into certain markets of goods and services with dominant market participants acting in these markets in the result of mergers of enterprises.
- Law of 22.04.2004 “Amendments to the Competition Law”
In 2003 a Working Group for preparation amendments to the Competition Law was created. It was necessary to approximate this law to the Law on Structure of State Administration and the Law on Administrative Proceedings and to provide special procedural order, how to apply material regulations of the Competition Law. At the same time it was decided to correct these disadvantages of the Competition Law, which were discovered during application of the new law, to widen investigation powers of the Competition Council and include in Law legal regulations, which could ensure effective application of the EU competition legislation in Latvia. Law “Amendments of the Competition Law” was adopted by Saeima (the Parliament) on the 22nd of April 2004 and entered into force by the 1st of May 2004.
