Overview of New Soft-Law Materials Designed to Promote Competition Law Compliance in Serbia

Abstract

The last three years have been very dynamic for the competition authority in Serbia. The newly elected Council and President of the Commission for Protection of Competition (Serbian NCA) have brought a much-needed change to competition enforcement in Serbia, shifting the focus of enforcement from solely individual cases, to looking at the bigger picture and promoting competition law compliance as the preferred business model. During this period, the Serbian NCA has published several soft-law instruments, issuing its first Guidelines for Drafting compliance programmes, accompanied by a Template compliance programme and two compliance Checklists, aimed at identifying competition law related risks. These materials, meant to raise competition law awareness, were accompanied by vigorous advocacy activities in promoting competition law compliance. The overall aim was to foster voluntary compliance with competition law, promoting competition as a positive value in doing business, and ensuring compliance from the bottom up.

Keywords

• competition law
• guidelines
• serbia
• competition compliance