Introduction of Speakers and their Presentations
Wednesday 10 November 2021
opening speech
Petr Mlsna
Chairman, Czech NCA
Petr Mlsna is the Chairman of the Office for the Protection of Competition since 2 December 2020. Starting from 2003, he held a number of positions at the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic and at the Government Legislative Council. In late 2012 and early 2013, he held the position of Minister without portfolio and the Chairman of the Government Legislation Council. Subsequently, he was the acting Deputy Minister for Justice and for Education, Youth and Sports. Since 2015, until his appointment as the Chairman of the Office, he was the acting Deputy Minister responsible for the Section of Legislative, State Administration and Regional Administration of the Ministry of Interior.
SESSION I: WHAT IS NEW IN COMPETITION LAW AND POLICY
Kamil Nejezchleb
Vice-Chairman, Czech NCA
Kamil Nejezchleb is the acting Vice-chairman of the Office for the Protection of Competition and is responsible for the Competition Division since 1 April 2021. He graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Masaryk University in Brno and the Faculty of Business and Management of the Brno University of Technology in 2007. He completed the doctoral program at the Faculty of Law of the Masaryk University in 2019. His dissertation focused on the modernization of legal instruments for detection of cartel agreements and he also implemented several specific projects which focused on different aspects of competition law throughout his doctoral studies. In November 2008, he joined the Office and since then has served in several positions. For the last five years, he worked as the Head of the Unit of Cartels and the Deputy Director of the Department of Cartels. He also taught commercial and trade law at the Public Administration Academy in Brno. He has been engaged in long-term cooperation with the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Economics and Administration of Masaryk University where he gives specialized lectures on competition law and economics. He has gained extensive experience with the application of competition law abroad. He participated in a six-month internship at the European Commission - DG COMP and is active within the European Competition Network and International Competition Network. He also collaborated in the creation of the methodology for the leniency and settlement programmes and the preparation of recent amendments of the Act on the Protection of Competition. He engaged in training of contracting authorities on the issue of bid rigging on a long-term basis. He published several expert articles on competition. He is the co-author of the publication Economic Methods in Competition Law.
Boris Gregor
Vice-Chairman, Slovak NCA
Boris Gregor has been a Deputy Chairman of the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic since April 2016. Boris Gregor graduated from Faculty of Business Management at University of Economics in Bratislava. He joins the Office from the company Bratislavská vodárenská spoločnosť, a. s., where he worked as Sales Director and he also held the position of Board Deputy Chairman (2011–2015). Previously, he was working for the company BELIMEX a. s. (2000–2011), where he held both the position of Board Chairman and director of the company since 2008.Martin Janda
Austrian NCA
Martin Janda is Staff Department Director and Senior Advisor at the Austrian Federal Competition Authority since January 2019. He was General Director for Personnel and Legal Matters in the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs from 2000 to 2018. Janda previously served as advisor in the personal office of the Vice Chancellor, responsible for legal matters and the public administration and was head of different divisions in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. He is a juris doctor and graduated from the University of Vienna, Faculty of Law.
Csaba Balázs Rigó
President, Hungarian NCA
Csaba Balázs Rigó is the President of the Hungarian Competition Authority (Gazdasági Versenyhivatal – GVH). Prior to his appointment in April 2020, he exercised his role as the President of the Hungarian Public Procurement Authority since 2015. He also serves as the Vice-president of the Council of the Public Procurement Authority and is a member of the Editorial Committee of the Public Finance Quarterly. He acquired degrees in economics, software engineering mathematics and public procurement management. He regularly speaks on competition law related matters at national conferences and is also the author of numerous articles on public procurement. He is currently a guest lecturer in competition law at Corvinus University of Budapest.
SESSION II: AMENDMENT TO THE CZECH COMPETITION ACT IN LIGHT OF THE ECN+ DIRECTIVE
Romana Skácelová
Czech NCA
Romana Skácelová graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Palacký University in Olomouc – the Law and Legal Science program and the European Studies program in the field of European Law. After joining the Office for the Protection of Competition, she worked in the Department of Cartels, and, in 2021, she became Head of the Strategic Analyses and Legal Support Unit of the Competition Division. She regularly participates in meetings held within the European Competition Network. She also participates in the preparation of methodologies and analyses in the field of competition law and also in the preparation of the Amendment to the Act on the Protection of Competition.
Marcela Káňová
Císař, Češka, Smutný, law firm
Marcela Káňová is an attorney specialised in the field of competition law, public procurement and IT law.
Until recently, she provided clients of the law firm “Císař, Češka, Smutný“ with legal advice in the area of cartels, abuse of dominant position, competition law assessment of mergers and acquisitions, significant market power, State aid and public procurement, including the representation in proceedings before the Czech Office for the Protection of Competition and the European Commission. She was at the origin of the legal team specialised in the mentioned areas and led this team herself for several years.
Prior to joining advocacy practice in 2015, she worked at the Office for the Protection of Competition as the Head of the Department of Public Procurement Monitoring and Bid Rigging. Her dissertation within the doctoral program at the Charles University in Prague is also focused on the issue of bid rigging.
Marcela Káňová graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Masaryk University in Brno. She completed study visits at the Austrian Leopold-Franzens Universität in Innsbruck and Sapienza University in Rome.
She is a member of the Appellate Commission of the Office for the Protection of Competition dealing with the sphere of public procurement and, at the same time, she is also engaged in regular publication activities and lecturing in this area.
Michal Petr
Palacký University Olomouc
Michal Petr is an assistant lecturer at the International and European Law Department of the Faculty of Law at Palacký University Olomouc. He lectures European law with the focus on competition law, State aid, public procurement and regulation of network industries. Michal gained his extensive experience in these areas when he worked at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2011 and 2012 and in particular during his career at the Office for the Protection of Competition. He served at the Office as a director of Legislative Unit from the year 2003, as a director of Division of Legislation and International Affairs from the year 2006 and finally, as a Vice-chairman of the Office from 2010 to 2015. He is an author of numerous publications on competition law, sector regulation and on particular issues of administrative punishment. He is a member of the editorial board of the magazines ANTITRUST and Public Governance, Administration and Finances Law Review, a national contributor to magazine European Competition and Regulatory Law Review. He is also a member of the Appeals Commitee of the Czech National Bank and of the Office for the Protection of Competition.
SESSION III: COMPETITION LAW AND DIGITAL MARKETS
Roman Pliska
Czech NCA
Roman Pliska graduated from the Faculty of Law at Masaryk University in Brno. Since 2001, he has been working at the Office for the Protection of Competition where, from the beginning, he worked in various positions within the Competition Division specialising in cartel agreements, and, particularly, in the field of concentrations between undertakings. He took part in the resolution of many significant cases, as well as the preparation of relevant legislation and soft law. Since 2015, he has been the acting head of the International Unit of the Office and is responsible for the engagement of the Czech NCA in the activities of the European Competition Network (ECN), the OECD Competition Committee and other international competition platforms such as the ICN. Furthermore, he has been representing the Office within the respective Working Group of the Council of the EU during negotiation of the EU competition related legislation, and, at the same time, is also responsible for the engagement of the Czech NCA in the Committee for the European Union at the working level, of which the Office is an associated member.
Jan Měkota
ROWAN LEGAL, law firm
Jan Měkota leads ROWAN LEGAL's competition practice. He provides clients with comprehensive advice in all competition-related matters ranging from cartels to State Aid and private enforcement of damages. His team represents the clients in proceedings before the Office for the Protection of Competition, other NCAs or before the European Commission. Within competition practice, he is also responsible for implementations of competition management systems focused on mitigation of competition risks. has long been involved in developing and implementing internal compliance systems, particularly on competition and criminal law prevention.
Jan provides competition advisory mainly to clients in the ICT and TMT sectors, water supply, energy and waste management suppliers, clients from construction industry or to e-commerce clients. Jan has been a member of the ROWAN LEGAL team for more than eight years.
Anatoly Subočs
European Commission
Anatoly Subočs worked for 12 years in DG Competition of the European Commission. He was a member of antitrust, merger and policy units. Anatoly specialised in cases notably in the digital as well as telecom and industrial sectors. He worked on such mergers as Microsoft/LinkedIn, Facebook/WhatsApp, Microsoft/Github, IBM/Red Hat, Siemens/Alstom, Dow/DuPont and mobile telecom mergers. Besides case work, Anatoly contributed to various policy projects, such as reflections on the digitalisation including "killer acquisitions" and the Special Advisers Report on Digital Policy, evaluation of the EU Merger Regulation, and the assessment of innovation effects.
Since 2021, Anatoly is a policy officer at the RECOVER Task Force of the European Commission, which implements the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility. Before joining the Commission, he worked in a U.S. law firm in Brussels. Anatoly studied Law at Concordia University in Tallinn and obtained an LL.M degree in Amsterdam (2005).
Petr Zákoucký
Dentons Europe, law firm
Petr Zákoucký is the Czech Republic Managing Partner. He is the Head of the Energy practice and Co-Head of the Corporate/M&A practice in Dentons' Prague office. He has 15 years of experience in advising on M&A, competition, regulatory and litigation matters. Petr has a strong working track record in advising clients operating in energy/infrastructure, life science, engineering, manufacturing and IT. Petr's work involves a number of jurisdictions outside of Europe incl. Africa, Australia/Asia and US. Petr is recognized by Chambers Europe as a Band 1 practitioner in Project & Energy and Band 2 practitioner in Competition/Antitrust.
Petr' s experience encompasses advising on regulatory issues and representing before national and EU regulators; representing sellers and buyers in M&A, in particular in energy sector; drafting and negotiating commercial arrangements, including JV agreements, long-term supply agreements or auction documentation, drafting merger filings and submissions in antitrust investigations before Czech, Slovak and EU competition authorities; representing in state aid proceedings and complaints before the EU Commission; advising on environmental matters and public procurement; and representing in litigation before Czech and EU courts, and advising on investment protection (BITs) structuring.
SESSION IV: COMPETITION ISSUES OF GUN JUMPING
Martin Vitula
Czech NCA
Since September 2007, he has worked as the Director of Merger Department. Before he worked as the Director of Department I of the Competition Section, where he focused on competition in the energy sector and industry and as an economist at the Office for the Protection of Competition.
He has contributed to the elaboration of a number of documents published by the Office for the Protection of Competition, and took part in many conferences and workshops in the area of competition. Martin Vitula graduated from the Faculty of Economics and Administration of the Masaryk University.
Radovan Kubáč
Nedelka Kubáč advokáti, law firm
Radovan Kubáč is an attorney and partner at the Prague and Bratislava offices of the law firm “Nedelka Kubáč Advokáti”, solely specialised in Czech, Slovak and EU competition law, regulatory matters, public procurement and compliance issues. He studied law in Olomouc, Frankfurt an der Oder and Saarbrücken. He worked for the Directorate – General for Competition of the European Commission and the Energy and Competition Office of Baden-Württemberg. Later, he worked at the law firms Gleiss Lutz and Schönherr. He specialises particularly in competition law, unfair competition, State aid and public procurement issues, on which he also gives specialised lectures.
Robert Neruda
HAVEL & PARTNERS, law firm
Robert Neruda is a partner and leader of a team of competition lawyers and economists at the law firm HAVEL & PARTNERS. Before that, he was the Vice-Chair of the Office for the Protection of Competition. He is specialized in the fields of cartels, abuse of dominance and competition law assessments of mergers and acquisitions, significant market power and State aid, compliance and Foreign Direct Investment. In 2017, he was named one of the six most innovative lawyers in the Czech Republic, and, under his leadership, the law firm won the “Law Firm of the Year” five times in the competition law category (for years 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2020).
In 2004 and 2005, he was an assistant judge of the Supreme Administrative Court. He gives lectures at the Masaryk University in Brno and also at international specialised conferences. He is the co-author of the commentary on the Czech Competition Act and the author and co-author of several professional articles. He is also a founding member of the “Rozumné právo“ (Reasonable Law) platform and is a member of the editorial boards of the professional journals Antitrust and Oxford Competition Law.
SESSION V: IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UNFAIR TRADING PRACTICES DIRECTIVE INTO THE CZECH LEGAL SYSTEM
Petr Solský
Vice-Chairman, Czech NCA
Petr Solský graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Masaryk University in Brno in 1998. At the same Faculty he received JUDr. degree in the field of criminal law. He worked in public administration on a number of managing positions, for example at the Ministry of the Interior or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2003 to 2010 he gained extensive experience at the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the EU in Brussels where he was responsible for management of the division of justice and interior including the coordination of preparations of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU. Back in the Czech Republic he worked in private sector in a law firm. Consequently he focused in particular on the area of information and communication technology, among others as a Deputy Minister of the Interior for this area in the years 2013 and 2014. Petr Solský has been focusing on a number of issues of criminal and administrative law including the regulatory framework for public procurement and prohibited state aid. He is a long term member of the Regulatory Impact Assessment Commission of the Government Legislative Council (RIA Commission).
On 5th April 2016 Petr Solský was appointed to the position of the Vice-chairman of the Office for the Protection of Competition and entrusted with the management of the Legislative and Public Regulation Division.
Pawel Kuźma
Polish NCA
Paweł Kuźma is the director of Department of Contractual Advantage in Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (OCCP). The Department of Contractual Advantage since August 2020 has been responsible for enforcement of Polish UTP act (Act of 15 December 2016 on Counteracting the Unfair Use of Contractual Advantage in the Trade in Agricultural and Food Products) and closely involved in preparing the draft of new Polish regulations concerning UTP`s.
He is an attorney at Warsaw Bar Association. He acquired a degree in Law at Warsaw University and in Economics at Lazarski University. He also completed a postgraduate studies concerning commercial law at Warsaw School of Economics.
Jacek Marczak
Polish NCA
Jacek Marczak graduated in law from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in 2010, and became an attorney in 2015. He is a deputy director in the Bydgoszcz Office of the Polish Office of Consumer and Competition Protection (OCCP). For 10 years he has handled antitrust and consumer protection cases on unfair advertising (online, TV and press ads), energy, water supplies, food and feed production, financial services and IT. As an attorney-at-law he has represented the President of OCCP before courts since 2015. He has taken part in and organised himself many dawn raids and inspections.
In 2015 he was seconded to the Competition and Markets Authority in London for a 2-month-long stay. He has also taken part in study visits in Portuguese and Italian NCAs. Since 2017 he has actively participated in works of the European Competition Network (Food Subgroup), and also since that year has led in the OCCP a team responsible for nationwide enforcement of a Polish act on unfair trading practices in agricultural and food sectors (UTPs).
Mr. Marczak is an author of the official OCCP guidelines on commitment decisions and also science and press articles in the fields of competition law, consumer protection, UTPs and intellectual property. He has also served as an expert or team leader in several international projects related to consumer law and competition protection.
Tomáš Prouza
President, Confederation of Commerce and Tourism of the Czech Republic
Tomáš Prouza is the President of the Czech Trade and Tourism Association, the Vice-President of the Czech Chamber of Commerce and the Vice-President of the European association EuroCommerce. He graduated from diplomacy and economic journalism at the Prague University of Economics and Business and also received an MBA degree at the Open University in the United Kingdom. In 2000, he founded the personal finance website (Penize.CZ). He was the Deputy Minister of Finance responsible for financial services, fiscal policy and EU affairs, cofounded the largest personal finance advisory company Partners, and, for several years, he was engaged in financial market reforms for the World Bank in Washington, D.C. In January 2014, he returned to Prague where he became acting State Secretary for EU Affairs.
Dana Večeřová
President, Federation of the Food and Drink Industries of the Czech Republic
Dana Večeřová is specialised in the agriculture and food sector. She graduated from the University of Agriculture (now the Mendel University) in Brno. She worked in various positions within the agricultural sector. From 1991 to 1996, she worked as a research scientist at the Institute of Animal Science in Prague – Uhříněves. In 1996, she worked as deputy editor of the magazine “Náš chov” (intended for livestock farmers) at “Strategie” Publishing, and, from 2000 to 2003, she was the editor of this magazine.
From 2003 to 2007, she worked at the Czech Ministry of Agriculture, where she began working as a Communication Department worker, and, later, she gained the position of communication adviser of the State Secretary. This led her to the position within the department responsible for the preparation of the Czech Presidency of the EU. In 2007, she became the Marketing and Communication Director of the Federation of the Food and Drink Industries of the Czech Republic (FFDI). In the interim, she returned to the Ministry of Agriculture – to the position of Communication Director and Press Secretary and, also, to the position of specialist within the Cabinet of the Minister. In 2019, she became acting President of the FFDI.
WORKSHOPS
I. Procedural Issues
Igor Pospíšil
Czech NCA
Igor Pospíšil completed his studies at the Faculty of Law of the Masaryk University in Brno in 2001. Since 2001 he has been working as a lawyer at the Office for the Protection of Competition. From 2005 to 2008 he held the position of a Head of the Working Group for Liberal Professions and in the period 2006–2007 he was a Director of Manufacturing and Retail Unit. Since the year 2007 he has been working as a Director of the Cartel Unit. From 2004 to 2007 he was also acting as lector of administrative law, registered by the Ministry of the Interior. He co-authored several documents issued by the Office for the Protection of Competition and acted as a speaker in different conferences and seminars in the area of competition law. He also gives lectures on the issues of competition law.
Ivana Halamová Dobíšková
Allen & Overy, law firm
Ivana Halamová Dobíšková is a senior attorney and a member of the Central European team for competition law at the law firm Allen & Overy. She specialises in competition law, significant market power, State aid and public procurement law. Since February 2021, she has been a member of the Appellate Commission of the Chairman of the Office for the Protection of Competition dealing with State aid and significant market power issues. She completed postgraduate studies in EU law at the College of Europe in Bruges and the program “Economics in Competition Law” at the King's College in London. Previously, she was active in the Legal Service of the European Commission. She has vast experience in representing clients before the Office for the Protection of Competition, the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the EU. She is recommended by the international publications “Chambers Europe” or “Legal500” as an expert in competition law.
Marek Šulc
Czech NCA
Marek Šulc graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Masaryk University in Brno and the Faculty of Economics and Administration of the same University – the Economics and Business Management program. Within his studies, he spent one year at the University of Huddersfield in United Kingdom, where he received a BA (Hons) degree. In 2019, after his graduation, he joined the Office for the Protection of Competition – the Department of Cartels, where he has been working as an officer focused particularly on the issue of bid rigging. He is also a member of relevant ECN and ICN Working Groups, and also participates in the implementation of new ICTs applied during on-site inspections.
II. Vertical Agreements – the Czech Current Practice and Proposed Reform at the EU Level
Lenka Svobodová
Czech NCA
Lenka Svobodová graduated from the Brno University of Technology in 1995 and she joined the Office for the Protection of Competition since the same year. Since the beginning of her professional career at the Office, she has been focusing on the area of protection of competition against its unlawful distortion, in particular through agreements between undertakings or abuse of dominant position. She has dealt with cases from various sectors, especially energy, health and pharmaceuticals, agriculture, forestry and water management, retail sales of goods and so on. In 2018, she was appointed as Head of the Unit of Dominance and Vertical Agreements – Manufacturing. In 2021, she has been appointed as Director of the Dominance, Mergers and Vertical Agreements Department.
Pavel Breinek
Czech NCA
Pavel Breinek completed the doctoral studies of Competition Policy at the Faculty of Economics and Administration of the Masaryk University in Brno. He worked as a lecturer at the Institute of Economics of the Faculty of Business and Economics of the Mendel University in Brno and at the Institute of Economics of the Faculty of Business and Management of the Brno University of Technology where his research, publication and educational activities were focused on the spheres of economics and competition policy.
Since 2018, he has been working at the Office for the Protection of Competition, and is specifically engaged in the resolution of issues related to the abuse of dominant position and prohibited vertical agreements. In 2021, he was appointed as Head of the Unit of Dominance and Vertical Agreements – Manufacturing.
Jiří Kindl
Skils, law firm
Jiri Kindl is a partner in law firm Skils s.r.o. (formerly Weil, Gotshal & Manges). In his legal practice, he specializes primarily in competition and regulatory matters. Jiri Kindl graduated summa cum laude from the Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague. He also studied law at the University of Limerick (Ireland) and a post-graduate course at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford (University College) where he obtained Distinction and Clifford Chance Prize for Best Performance in Magister Juris, Winter Williams European Business Regulation Prize and Monckton Chambers Prize in Competition Law. He authored numerous publications on competition law topics both in the Czech Republic and abroad, e.g. he is the co-author of a textbook on Competition Law (Prague, C. H. Beck, 3rd edn, 2021), Commentary to the Czech Competition Act (Prague, C. H. Beck, 3rd edn, 2016), Commentary to the Act on Significant Market Power (Prague, C. H. Beck, 2017) and Commentary to the Act on Damages in the Area of Competition (Prague, C. H. Beck, 2019). Jiri Kindl also lectures competition law and economics at the Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague. He has extensive experience with proceedings in front of the Czech competition authority, the European Commission as well as civil courts and he is regularly referred to in publications such as Chambers Europe, Global Competition Review or Legal500 as a leading antitrust lawyer in the Czech Republic.
III. Territorial Restrictions on Food Supply as an Unfair Trading Practice by Suppliers
Jana Zmeškalová
Czech NCA
Jana Zmeškalová graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Masaryk University in 2005. She has worked at the Office for the Protection of Competition since 2014. In 2016, she became the head of the Control over Market Power Unit. Currently, she is the head of the Methodology and Control over Market Power Department. Between 2014 and 2015, she worked as a Remonstrance commission´s secretary for the Unit of 2nd Instance Decision-Making in the field of competition and participated in decisions processing as well as in defending the Office before administrative courts in a number of important cases. Before joining the Office, she had served for seven years as an assistant to presiding judge of a chamber of Criminal Division at the Supreme Court. From 2005 to 2007 she worked in a law firm.
Vojtěch Mucha
Tesco Stores ČR
Vojtěch Mucha has been a CE Counsel in Tesco Stores ČR since 2018, specialising in competition law and M&A. Previously he worked at the telecommunication company Cetin and at the Office for the Protection of Competition – Cartel Department. In 2015, he worked at the Directorate-General for Competition in Brussels.
Mr. Mucha graduated from the Faculty of Law and Economics and Administration at Masaryk University in Brno and completed study stays in Rotterdam and Vienna. He is also a graduate of the King´s College in London.
Aleš Rod
Centre for Economic and Market Analyses
Aleš Rod is a research director at the Centre for Economic and Market Analyses (CETA). He received his Ph.D. in Economic Theory at the University of Economics in Prague and continues to be engaged in academic work. His research activities are related to economics of regulation with application in the energy sector and waste economy. Moreover, he is involved in several projects dealing with the economics of luxury, public finances, the shadow economy and banking. He provides advisory services for various projects for both public and private entities in the Czech Republic and abroad, and is a board member of the Consumer Forum and the Anglo-American University in Prague.
