Abuse-of-Dominance Provisions of Central and Eastern European Competition Laws : Have Fears of Over-Enforcement Been Borne Out?

Fifteen years ago, when economic reformers were writing and enacting competition laws in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe, some critics warned that such laws, or too stringent enforcement of such laws, carried the danger of discouraging competitive behavior and the development of markets. An examination of the enforcement experience with the abuse-of-dominance provisions of the laws of eleven countries over two separate time periods suggests that the feared evils have not materialized. Two patterns stand out in this enforcement experience: first, the number of findings of abuse of dominance has been very small in countries other than Poland, and second, a large and growing proportion of these findings of abuse have been in sectors that would in developed market economies be subject to economic regulation