In his contribution to EPRAVO.CZ, attorney David Línek drew attention to the issue of assessing agreements on resale pricing (so-called RPM agreements
This type of agreement is one of the most frequently penalized offenses by the Czech Office for the Protection of Competition for violating competition law. However, the current practice of Czech authorities may not be fully in line with the current case law of the European Union Court of Justice.
Based on agreements on determining prices for resale, sellers establish the prices at which their buyers should resell the affected product or service (typically done, for example, by manufacturers in relation to their distributors). Such an agreement can be competition-law problematic. However, it is a question of whether every such agreement should be automatically prohibited as an agreement aimed at disrupting economic competition or whether it is necessary to examine the specific circumstances of each case to conclude that its purpose was indeed to disrupt competition. The answer to this question has a significant impact on administrative proceedings and the amount of fines imposed. While Czech authorities tend to lean towards the first option, the European Union Court of Justice in a recent judgment in case C-211/22 SuperBock unequivocally prefers the second solution.