The Competition Council (CC) of Latvia has set its goals for the year 2015, prioritising ruthless fight against the most severe competition infringements, active promotion of the competition culture within society, as well as strengthening the capacity of the competition authority.
This year, the CC will actively focus on promoting the competition culture in Latvia. The authority plans to promote involvement of market participants in the improvement of the competition environment, as we as to encouraging them to inform the CC about possible infringements of the Competition Law. Furthermore, in order to reduce the number of competition infringements in a long-term, the CC will educate both beginning and experienced entrepreneurs on Competition Law, advise public persons, those decisions or actions endanger competitive neutrality, as well as will promote the overall understanding of the society about consumers’ benefits from the fair competition.
According to the Strategy of the Case Prioritisation, which was introduced by the CC in the previous year, the authority this year and further on primarily will focus on the most substantial competition infringements that affect the majority of the society. However, less severe infringements can be resolved by method of warning or mediation, thus allowing to more efficiently use the limited resources of the authority.
To gain in-depth understanding about markets and to be able ex officio to detect infringements, the CC will continue the already launched and will commence new market inquiries, which cover markets and sectors that are substantial to customers in Latvia: processing and distribution of food and other consumer goods, retail, telecommunication services, medical and pharmaceutical services, financial services, electricity production and distribution, funeral services, waste management etc.
Furthermore, the CC will develop many practical and informative papers for market participants, e.g. merger guidelines, oral hearing guidelines, guidelines for settlement and administrative agreements, as well as competition assessment guidelines as recommendations for state and local municipalities during process of decision-making, which might affect the competition.
Lastly, as one of the most substantial events in 2015 the CC names hosting the European Competition Day, which will take place on 7 May in Riga, the capital of Latvia.