The Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition ("CPC") has recently published a report on its sector inquiry in the cement and concrete markets in Serbia, conducted from 2018 to 2021 ("Sector Inquiry"). The CPC aimed to determine the relationships between competitors on both markets, assess their market shares and relative strength, analyse their commercial policies and contractual relations...

In the last four months of 2022, the Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition ("CPC") initiated five investigations for suspected competition infringements. The beginning of 2023 shows that the CPC's intensive work on detecting competition infringements is not of a passing nature, but is here to stay – the CPC started the year off with yet another investigation for suspected resale price maintenance (RPM) against a heating products company Vaillant.

Starting from the end of September up to the first week of November alone, the Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition (“CPC”) initiated five investigations for suspected competition infringements. Not only is this level of enforcement activity rather high compared to previous years, but it also shows the CPC’s clear interest in two areas – the e-commerce sector and unnotified acquisitions (gun-jumping).

Digital markets have seen rapid expansion during the past two decades. A few large undertakings have established their positions as dominant players in digital markets globally, creating serious challenges for competition law enforcement in ensuring efficient and effective market regulation. Existing enforcement measures proved to be outdated or too slow when attempting to regulate the conduct of the Big Tech.

More than a year passed from the moment when the Law on Gender Equality ("Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia", no. 52/2021, "Law") entered into force superseding the old one from 2009. The most important statutory obligations are targeting only employers with more than 50 employees and individuals engaged on out-of-employment basis.

During the first half of 2022 The Commission for Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia ("Commission") has been very proactive with respect to prevention of competition infringements. As a result of these efforts, in May the Commission also adopted a new Instruction for detecting bid rigging in public procurement procedures ("Instruction") thereby updating the older version of the Instruction from 2011.