Romania's Competition Council has made significant progress but is still lagging behind when it comes to applying anti-competitive practices, a report of the World Bank shows. According to available data, the Competition Council opened 30 cases of cartel operations and four cases of dominant position abuse during 2007-2010. But it only concluded seven cartel operation inquiries and has yet to finalize any of the cases of dominant position abuse, despite six of these had been opened before 2007.
The percentage of solved cases to those currently investigated was of 20% in 2008 and 8% in 2009, while the average in other countries stands at 50%.
According to the report, merger analysis activities make up for most of the work volume in the competition sector despite most mergers don't raise significant threats to competition. During the period of 2007-2010, up to 56% of the competition cases were related to mergers and only 30% involved potential anti-competition practices.
