UTPs: High Administrative Court dismisses appeal of re-seller SPAR HRVATSKA

The High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia dismissed the appeal of the re-seller SPAR HRVATSKA d.o.o. and upheld the ruling of the Administrative Court in Zagreb of 19 April 2024 rejecting the claim for cancellation of the decision of the Croatian Competition Agency (CCA) of 22 July 2021, rejecting at the same time the recovery of the party’s litigation costs.

Namely, the court of first instance, the Administrative Court in Zagreb, completely rejected the statement of claim of the re-seller SPAR in the administrative dispute against the respondent CCA requesting annulment of its infringement decision of 22 July 2021 and the recovery of the litigation costs. Concretely, the CCA found in the infringement decision concerned that SPAR imposed unfair trading practices in the sale of agri or food products to end consumers under a lower price that any purchase price in the supply chain of the product concerned including VAT.

By this ruling of the High Administrative Court the CCA infringement decision of 22 July 2021 became legally valid.

• Note: In the course of the proceeding the CCA found that in the period from 9 November 2018 to 11 November 2018 the re-seller SPAR sold a specific food product – flour, to the final consumer at a price that was lower than any purchase price in the food supply chain and thereby committed a serious infringement of Article 12 item 14 of the UTPs Act stipulating that the sale of an agricultural or food product to the end consumer at a price that is lower than any purchase price in the chain of supply of this particular product including value added tax constitutes a serious infringement of the UTPs Act.

The full CCA decision in SPAR case in the Croatian language is available here