The working group set up within the Serbian Government tasked with the preparation of a new Competition Protection Law has circulated the first proposal of the new law for comments by specialized local associations that include Foreign Investors Counsel (FIC) and AmCham Serbia. On the one hand, the proposal attempts to consolidate into existing rules SCC's practice of the past 12 years and, on the other, to reconcile the procedural aspects of SCC's work with recently enacted Law on Administrative Proceedings.

In merger control, new proposals include (i) an increase of the current jurisdictional thresholds (something that has long been lobbied for by industry representatives) as well as (ii) the introduction of a market share based threshold (notification obligation if the concentration leads to a market share of more than 40% in a product market). The existing exceptions to the notion of a "concentration" shall be amended in a way that, for example, the acquisitions by investment funds can no longer benefit from the exception. The deadlines for filing the notification and deciding the case shall prolonged and the procedure for requesting the implementation of a concentration despite the suspension obligation (e.g. in public take overs and/or privatizations) shall be elaborated. Finally, the reporting obligation may be introduced in case the parties fail to meet the closing deadlines stated in the notification or where the transaction is abandoned after it is cleared.

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