EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

Prague, Czechia

another integral aspect of the statute of limitations. As the goal is to strike the balance between legal certainty which includes ensuring that cases are dealt with within a reasonable time and the effective and efficient application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, ways of achieving this goal can be illustrated by the following simplified example. We can imagine a virtual balance scale, where on one side we put the individual aspects of the statute of limitations (e.g., the legal regulation of interruption of the limitation period) which inclines more heavily towards the legal certainty and ensuring that cases are dealt with within a reasonable time and on the other side we put individual aspects of the statute of limitations (e.g., the basic length of the limitation period) which inclines more heavily towards the effective and efficient application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. For simplicity, the individual aspects of the statute of limitations (e.g., the rules for determining the date from which the limitation period begins to run) which strike the ideal balance on their own can be put aside. Then after putting all the individual aspects of the statute of limitations on the respective sides of the virtual balance scale, we can determine whether or not the statute of limitations as a whole (including all its individual aspects) strikes the necessary balance between the aforementioned principles. Based on this, the authors have further assessed the statute of limitations system in the Czech competition law as a whole with all its aspects. 3.3 Analysis and Problem Solution The authors believe that specifically the lack of consideration of the specificities of competition law enforcement by the rules for determining the grounds for an interruption of the limitation period (which the authors identified and described above) can be balanced out by the very length of the limitation period set by the APC. As mentioned above, the basic and general limitation period provided for in the APC is 10 years which is twice as long as the limitation period laid down in Regulation 1/2003. It is actually as long as the maximum length of the limitation period according to Article 25(5) of Regulation 1/2003 which determines the maximum length of the limitation period in the case it was interrupted (not including the instances where it was also suspended). It is evident, that the basic limitation period this long inclines more heavily towards the effective and efficient application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. The authors determined that the basic limitation period of 10 years is sufficiently long to ensure the effective and efficient application of competition law in order to compensate for all the negative effects of the OPC not really having an opportunity to take an action which leads to the interruption of the limitation period after it has initiated the proceedings and before it has gathered all the necessary evidence and other documentation. That is because a limitation period this long can even without

304

Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog