Problems of Competition Policy in the Czech Republic

Abstract

After a long intermission in the development of anti-trust law and under the auspices of the difficult development which this field of law underwent in the world, this special instrument of economic policy began to operate from scratch in the then existing Czech and Slovak Federative Republic under gradually emerging market conditions. Czech politicians were able to seek guidance, however, from theoretical conclusions reached abroad, from foreign judical practice, as well as from public awareness of anti-trust law from their pre-war memories and experience with the socialist mutation of competition law. Regardless of these influences, however, anti-monopoly and anti-trust law are primarily determined by the state of a particular economy and the order of economic policy priorities resulting from it. For this reason the criteria of a functioning, stabilized market economy (which includes an anti-trust law judicature) are only applicable to a limited extent in the conditions of the Czech economy in transformation.