Serbia’s competition authority has opened an investigation into Glovo, alleging the food delivery application abused its dominance by imposing exclusivity clauses on its restaurant partners. The agency raided the offices of Glovo on 2 November although the authority’s market study into online food delivery platforms is still ongoing. This and other recent raids have caused controversy over the practice and attracted the interest of Global Competition Review, a reputable global publication specialized in matters of competition law.
The raids come as Serbia’s competition rules are being challenged before the courts in competition-based proceedings and also before the Constitutional Court per constitutional complaints in the proceedings which are still pending.
Bogdan Gecić, Founding Partner at Gecić Law, who is lead counsel on these challenges, commented for GCR that he suspects the Constitutional Court is waiting for parliament to rectify the statute without having to quash the legislation itself. He added that the authority could be “abusing its awareness of this comity” and increasing the number of dawn raids it is conducting. He stated that the authority’s unannounced dawn raids are a clear breach of established case law under the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees a company’s rights of defence and the right to a fair trial in antitrust cases. Under the explicit wording of the Serbian constitution, ECHR case law applies directly, has a binding effect and supersedes any statutes or other national legislation.
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