In August 2005 the provisions of Law 703/1977 “on the control of monopolies and oligopolies and the protection of free competition” (“Law 703/77”), including the merger control rules, were amended by Law 3373/2005. Under Law 703/77 as recently revised (the “revised law”), post-merger notification, which had previously been abolished by way of Law 2837/2000, has been reintroduced with Article 4a. Moreover, the structure of the Greek Competition Commission (the “GCC”) has been modified while the merger notification requirements and procedures, as described in our Chapter (the “Main Chapter”), have been amended primarily by abolishing the market share criterion for a pre-merger notification under Article 4b and introducing a two-step procedure for the examination of these transactions. The main amendments to the merger control rules, including, also, the readjustments to the fines and penalties that may be imposed by the GCC for any infringements of Law 703/77 as well as the significant additions to the revised law, particularly concerning sectoral investigations, will be examined in this supplement.

Structure of the GCC

Under the revised law, the composition of the GCC has been increased from nine to eleven members. In particular, rather than appointing only one member from a Greek university specialising in financial matters and economic policy, the Minister appoints two, while, in relation to those members who are appointed to the GCC because of their prestige and experience in public and community economic law as well as competition policy matters, three members are appointed instead of two.