Relevant legislation

The Act No. 143/2001 Coll. on the Protection of Economic Competition (‘the Competition Act’) is the primary legislation in the area of merger control. Merger control is further regulated by Decree No. 368/2001 Coll. (‘the Decree 368’) that contains the notification form filed by merging undertakings when requesting merger clearance and a list of documents to be provided together with the notification form and by certain soft law provisions (for details see below) contained in the guidelines of the Office for the Protection of Economic Competition (‘the Office’).

The Competition Act applies to all natural or legal persons, associations thereof, associations of such associations and other groupings, including cases where such associations and groupings are not legal persons, provided that they take part in competition or may influence competition by their activities. The legal form of the entity is irrelevant, as long as it conducts business activities on its own.

Upon the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union (EU), mergers occurring within the EU and having a ‘Community dimension’ pursuant to EC Regulation 139/2004 are not subject to the Competition Act and are not within the competence of the Office. Such mergers are not addressed hereunder at all.