The Moldovan legislation does not stipulate the notion “worldwide turnover” and this can lead to the discretionary implementation of the Competition Law. The enterprises must know how the worldwide turnover will be calculated when a violation of the competition norms is international in character, Carolina Pârcălab, manager of ACI Partners, stated in public debates on the bill to amend the Competition Law which were held within the responsible parliamentary commission, IPN reports.
“In the European Union, this problem does not appear as the European Commission’s guidelines at European level stipulate how the punishment for the violation of the competition norms are individualized and what revenues are included in the turnover based on which the fine is calculated. When the violation is international in character and the territorial limits of a state are exceeded, the Competition Authority can impose a fine or can include the revenues earned on the territory of other states in the calculation basis. At European level, this is clear. In the Republic of Moldova, as there are no such criteria there is also no clarity and predictability and the risk of discretionary implementation of the law appears,” explained Carolina Pârcălab.
The proposal is to transpose the minimum criteria stipulated in the European Commission’s guidelines to the national legislation. “These can be adjusted to our legislation, but the law should stipulate clear criteria for cases when the revenues earned on the territory of other states than the Republic of Moldova are included in the turnover used to calculate the fine,” stated Carolina Pârcălab.
Alexei Gertsescu, chairman of the Competition Council, said that fines can be already imposed based on the worldwide turnover. “We already have the possibility of imposing fines taking into account this notion of enterprise, which exists in the law, simply based on the existing case law of the European Court,” he stated.
Among the suggestions formulated in the debates was to specify in the law the revenues that will be included in the worldwide turnover. It was proposed that if it is impossible to determine the revenues at global level, only the incomes earned in Moldova should be taken into account.
