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be submitted on electronic support. Furthermore, the said article also
underlines the possibility to submit commitments within merger and
acquisition operations.
Announcement of Mergers and Acquisitions.
The 11
th
Article of the
Draft which provides that the Competition Authority will announce in
its official website the merger or acquisition including also the parties to
the operation that it took in evaluation establishes judicial certainty by
bringing transparency for the public opinion.
Business Secret and Confidentiality.
The 15
th
Article of the Draft
includes a new regulation on the protection of the confidentiality of
documents submitted to the Board. However, the relevant Article does not
give the definition of business secret.
What amendments need to be made to the Draft?
Joint Venture.
The Communiqué No. 1997/1 is intensively criticized
in the doctrine because it does not include a detailed provision on joint
venture. Nevertheless, despite this, the 3
rd
Paragraph of Article 5 of the
Draft did not take these critics into consideration and brought a parallel
regulationwith the Communiqué No. 1997/1. However, it shall be explained
in the Draft that a joint venture causing the coordination of the competition
within the scope of Article 4 of the Act shall not be permitted. In short, the
Draft shall include full-functional joint-ventures.
Continuous Control.
Although the notion of “control” is stated in
the 4
th
Paragraph of Article 5 of the Draft, no any reference is made to
“continuous control”. However, in order to be in compliance with the
Regulation No. 139/2004, the notion of “continuous control” shall be
included within the framework of the Draft.
Pre-notification.
The Draft states that the parties shall submit with
the notification a signed agreement. Consequently, the parties have not the
possibility to send a notification with a view to receive the pre-opinion
of the Board. In fact, the 4
th
Article of the Regulation provides the pre-
notification procedure. The Draft shall include this provision since it
simplifies the transactions of Competition Authority and grants to the
parties the possibility to know whether or not the articles of the relevant
contract are contrary to the Act before that they enter into a binding
obligation.