By Claudia Bock

In April 2018 the Office for the Protection of Competition adopted new guidelines on the method of setting fines for competition law infringements, noting that the need for a revision of the previous guidelines had emerged in the wake of developing case law, as well as amendments to the Act on the Protection of Competition.

The new guidelines are intended to underline the repressive and preventive function of fines. As a result, undertakings can expect higher fines for infringements of competition rules than under the previous regime. In line with the previous guidelines, the new guidelines continue to consider the gravity and duration of the infringement as the core factors when calculating a fine.