Let’s talk about antitrust law…

On the evening of 15 November, GESSEL’s office was the venue of a gathering of members of the Polish competition and consumer protection law community.

Prof. Anna Fornalczyk and the hon. Stanisław Gronowski (supported by Bernadeta Kasztelan-Świetlik, Jarosław Sroczyński, and Aleksander Stawicki) began by comparing notes from their tenures as, respectively, the first president of the Antimonopoly Office, as UOKiK was initially known, and as the first Polish judge to rule on antitrust cases. One of the strands running throughout the evening’s conversations was that of how competition law – an odd animal at the best of times, dwelling in a strange nexus of the administrative, business, and criminal disciplines – came to be introduced to early 1990s Poland, a country which had just abandoned a centrally planned economy. In this context, it was noted that the first Polish piece of antitrust legislation numbered 24 articles, as compared with the 138 of its successor instrument now in force.

Heartfelt thanks go out to all the participants – your contributions and your presence are much appreciated!  We hope that, soon enough, we might meet again in a similar formula (the next gathering is tentatively scheduled for mid-January 2023, when we will discuss vertical agreements).