On the 20th and 21st of June 2019, Freedom House Romania organized an international conference on competition law within the project “Supporting Transnational Cooperation and Training in Competition Law”, funded by the European Commission through the Directorate General for Competition. The event took place at Hotel Minerva, in Bucharest.
At the conference were invited national and European judges, representatives of the European Commission specialized in competition law, and members of the Romanian Competition Council. The event brought together prestigious Romanian and international speakers, noticebly:
- Viktor Bottka – member of the European Commission’s Legal Service, at the Sate Aid and Anti-dumping Department. Over the past 13 years he has worked on 259 cases in EU courts and has published numerous articles on banking antitrust laws and the financial sector in Brussels.
- Petre Alexandru Biolan – member of the European Commission’s Legal Service, at the Trade Policy and the World Trade Organization Department. Over the course of 9 years he has been dealing with cartels, antitrust cases, dominant position abuses, and mergers. He has also published several articles on European competition law.
- Cristina Butacu – Director of the Juridical-Contentious Division of Romania, coordinating its activity by supervising the documents prepared in the judicial procedure in the cases of competition and state aid. Cristina Butacu has published numerous articles in specialized journals, such as e-Competitions Bulletin, Romanian Journal of European Law, Magazine of Commercial Law, Judiciary Courier.
- Gabriela Milea – Head of Technical Assistance and Cooperation Service, State Aid Department, Competition Council of Romania. She is an expert in the following areas: state aid, public authorities and institutions, and in the drafting of normative or administrative acts establishing state aid measures.
- Eugenia Marin – Former Judge at the High Court of Cassation and Justice of Romania. Eugenia Marin has taken part in professional specialization activities within the Competition Authority in Italy, and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, publishing several articles.
- Senka Orlić-Zaninović – Judge at the High Administrative Court of Croatia, producing a wide array of draft laws concerning administrative law.
- Viktor Kreuschitz – Judge at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Mr. Kreuschiz has an experience of over 16 years in the legal service of the European Commission, having dealt with issues such as: anti-dumping, state aid monitoring, social security coordination, free movement workers, non-discrimination directives, European labor law, access to documents.
- Santiago Soldevila Fragoso – Former Judge at the at the General Court of the European Union and current Judege at the Contenious-Administrative Division of the Spanish National High Court, where he deals with competition law cases.
- Nicole Robins – leads the State aid practice at Oxera Consulting LLP (‘Oxera’) and is the partner in charge of Oxera’s Brussels office. Nicole Robins represents Oxera when advicing clients on a wide array of state aid matters.
- Vasileios Karanastasis – Judge at the Court of Thessaloniki, Greece.
- Anca Ghideanu – Judge at the Court of Appeal Iasi.
- Mădălina Elena Grecu – Judge at High Court of Cassation and Justice of Romania, Contentious-Administrative and Fiscal Division.
Over the course of two days, the speakers presented concrete situations and problems encountered by national and European judges when applying the national legislation in line with EU competition rules. Moreover, they also presented relevant competition law cases, focusing on those related to state aid. On the first day of the conference there were presented several points with regard to the inclusion of a state aid support measure, the role of the economic and financial analysis in the assessment of state aid, the enforcement of the market economy operator principle, and the judicial control of the acts issued in the field of state aid . Senka Orlic-Zaninovic presented the Croatian Constitutional Court’s decisions on State Aid and Abuse of Dominant Position, Vasileios Karanastasis discussed the (First Chamber) Court Judgement of 17 January 2018 (European Commission v Hellenic Republic – Action of a Member State to fulfill obligations under the second subparagraph of Article 108 (2) TFEU), and Viktor Kreuschitz presented the European Commission’s case against Elementary School Maria Montessori Srl.
During the second day of the conference there were presented topics related to the Court of Justice’s recent cases. Some of these topics included the recent developments in the assessment of selectivity in state aid practice of the Union’s courts, the recovery of illegal state aid, challenges in the judicial approach to state aid, state aid in the privatization of state-owned companies, and mergers. Santiago Soldevila presented the role of national judges according to Article 108 (3) TFEU, and Viktor Kreuschitz delivered a talk on the judgment of the Court of Justice (Grand Chamber) of 5 March 2019 (Eesti Pagar AS v Ettevõtluse Arendamise Sihtasutus and Majandus-ja Kommunikatsiooniministeerium).
Freedom House Romania’s competition law projects started in 2011. “Supporting transnational cooperation and training in competition law” is Freedom House Romania’s fifth competition law project funded by the European Commission through DG Competition.