In its infringement decision of 27 December 2012, the Croatian Competition Agency (CCA) found that the bus operators Prese\u010dki grupa d.o.o., Rudi express d.o.o., Jambro\u0161i\u0107 tours and Autobusni prijevoznik Turist entered into a Cooperation Agreement and the Agreement on joint scheduled bus transport services in Me\u0111imurje County on 1 March 2011. The CCA found that in the time period from 1 March 2011 to 9 October 2011 the undertakings concerned distorted competition in the scheduled public bus transport market and scheduled transport on school buses in Me\u0111imurje County by concluding a prohibited horizontal agreement within the meaning of Article 8 items 1, 2 and 3 of the Competition Act.<\/p>\n
Prese\u010dki grupa appealed against that decision of the CCA but the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia rejected the statement of claim and upheld the legality of the decision of the CCA by its ruling UsII-65\/2013-6 of 20 February 2014. Shortly afterwards Prese\u010dki grupa filed a constitutional complaint against the ruling of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia of 20 February 2014 with the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia. The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia confirmed the constitutional complaint by its decision U-III-1678\/2014 of 21 April 2016, cancelled the ruling of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia and returned the case to the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia to reverse the proceeding.<\/p>\n
The High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia rejected the statement of claim of Prese\u010dki grupa for the second time by its ruling UsII-60\/16-2 of 19 January 2017 and confirmed the legality of the decision of the CCA. Again, Prese\u010dki grupa filed a constitutional complaint against that ruling of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia. On 19 April 2018 the Constitutional Court confirmed the complaint by its decision U-III-952\/2017 and cancelled the ruling of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia of 19 January 2017.<\/p>\n
In its decisions the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia mainly stated that the rulings of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia that the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia revoked did not contain a detailed description of the reasons why in this concrete case that court did not apply the relevant provisions of the Road Transport Act OG 178\/04, 48\/05, 151\/05, 111\/06, 63\/08, 124\/09, 91\/10 and 112\/10, in the part regulating the issues of joint provision of transport services, subcontracting etc. and the (non)existence of a prohibited agreement (cartel) in the case concerned. In other words, it failed to juxtapose the provisions of two laws applicable in the case concerned: the Competition Act and the Road Transport Act, in other words, questioned why under the circumstances of the case concerned (also) the provisions of the latter did not apply.<\/p>\n
After the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia cancelled the ruling of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia for the second time, the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia, complying with the interpretation of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia in the decision of 19 April 2018, cancelled the decision of the CCA of 27 December 2012 by its ruling UsII-171\/18-2 of 27 September 2018 and reversed the proceeding to the CCA.<\/p>\n
After the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia cancelled the ruling of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia for the second time, the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia, complying with the interpretation of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia in the decision of 19 April 2018, cancelled the decision of the CCA of 27 December 2012 by its ruling UsII-171\/18-2 of 27 September 2018 and reversed the proceeding to the CCA.<\/p>\n
Respecting the legal interpretation of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia provided in the explanation of its ruling UsII-171\/18-2 of 27 September 2018, and in compliance with the above-mentioned decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia U-III-952\/2017 of 19 April 2018 relating to the application of the Road Transport Act, in the repeated proceeding the CCA found that in the period from 30 December 2010 to 1 March 2011 exclusively the provisions of the Road Transport Act applied as a separate law in the part regulating the subcontracting, which within the meaning of\u00a0 the principle lex specialis derogat legi generali <\/em>enjoyed supremacy over the competition law.<\/p>\n However, given the fact that Me\u0111imurje County has never cleared the application of Prese\u010dki grupa, Rudi express and Jambro\u0161i\u0107 tours for the licence for the provision of \u201cjoint\u00a0 provision of transport services\u201d in line with the Road Transport Act as lex specialis,<\/em> the CCA found that in the period following 1 March 2011, that is to say, after the conclusion of the Cooperation Agreement and the Agreement on joint scheduled bus transport services, the undertaking concerned had not provided the joint scheduled public transport services in Me\u0111imurje County, in the manner and under the conditions set in Article 40 of the Road Transport Act, on the account of the fact that they failed to satisfy the prerequisites identified thereof and had not been given the licence for the joint provision of transport services on scheduled bus lines, which was not challenged by the parties concerned, meaning that under the circumstances of the case concerned, in the specified period, the Competition Act had to be applied as a mandatory rule of law.<\/p>\n In its infringement decision of 7 October 2021, the CCA found that the above-mentioned undertakings entered into a Cooperation Agreement and the Agreement on joint scheduled bus transport services in Me\u0111imurje County. The agreements concerned contained restrictions of competition by object in the provision of scheduled bus transportation services in Me\u0111imurje County, such as the provisions on market sharing, joint arrangements and registration of new bus transportation routes in Me\u0111imurje County, agreed re-scheduling of the existing bus services and joint bidding in all future biddings for the provision of scheduled bus transportation services on school buses in Me\u0111imurje County.\u00a0 Thus, from 1 March 2011 to 9 October 2011 the undertakings concerned distorted competition in the scheduled public bus transport market and scheduled transport on school buses in Me\u0111imurje County by concluding a prohibited horizontal agreement within the meaning of Article 8 items 1, 2 and 3 of the Competition Act.<\/p>\n The undertakings concerned were imposed a fine in the total amount of EUR 136,837.<\/p>\n In its ruling of 9 March 2022, the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia rejected the statement of claim of Prese\u010dki grupa and upheld the infringement decision of the CCA of 7 October 2021 specifying that the CCA provided a valid extensive explanation regarding the challenged issues identified by the Constitutional Court and thereby acted fully in compliance with the binding standing of the Constitutional Court. Furthermore, the proper findings and the conclusions of the CCA made in the infringement decision proved a proper application of the relevant law and the EU case law.<\/p>\n On 26 May 2022 Prese\u010dki grupa filed a constitutional complaint against the ruling of the High Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia of 9 March 2022.<\/p>\n By its ruling U-III-3274\/2022, dated 12 September 2024, the Constitutional Court rejected the constitutional complaint filed by Prese\u010dki grupa, finidng that the Croatian Competition Agency, in the repeated proceedings, provided a comprehensive and detailed explanation of all its findings and legal positions, including those previously identified as insufficient by the Constitutional Court, in a manner that satisfies the constitutional and conventional guarantees of the right to a fair trial (adjudication) with respect to the prohibition against arbitrariness or the right to a reasoned decision. The Constitutional Court did not find any infringement of the constitutional and conventional rights alleged by Prese\u010dki grupa.<\/p>\n Thus, the decision of the CCA of 7 October 2021, has been fully upheld by both the High Administrative Court and the Constitutional Court of Croatia.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In its infringement decision of 27 December 2012, the Croatian Competition Agency (CCA) found that the bus operators Prese\u010dki grupa d.o.o., Rudi express d.o.o., Jambro\u0161i\u0107 tours and Autobusni prijevoznik Turist entered into a Cooperation Agreement and the Agreement on joint scheduled bus transport services in Me\u0111imurje County on 1 March 2011. The CCA found that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n