A workshop organized by the Polish Competition Law Association was held on Tuesday, December 5, 2017.

Our guests of honour were Mr. Marek Niechciał, Chairperson of the Office for Competition and Consumer Protection, and Mr. Michał Holeksa, Vice-Chairperson of the Office for Competition and Consumer Protection responsible for competition protection, as well as Mr. Wojciech Dorabialski, Director of the Department of Competition Protection and Mr. Jacek Marczak, Deputy Director of the Bydgoszcz Branch of the Office.

The Office Chairperson summarized the year that’s drawing to a close, pointing out the year’s key events and developments. He paid particular attention to the Act on counteracting unfair contractual advantages in trade in agricultural and food products, which entered into force in July 2017, the whistleblower programme and the Office’s activities in the area of bid rigging detection.  Statistics on the number of decisions issued in 2017 were also presented.

After the summary, the plans and objectives of the Office for the upcoming year were presented.  Notable among them was a declaration of increasing the diversity of cases subject to consideration, the end of the “soft” approach to vertical price agreements (RPM-s) and further development of the whistleblower programme. This part of the workshop generated great interest among the participants, who asked numerous questions about the issues presented by the officials and about “hot topics” in Polish and EU competition law.

Once the official part came to an end, we celebrated the season with cocktails. Please take a moment to look at the photos.