Competition Law in Central and Eastern Europe: Five Years Later

The first generaation of competition laws in Central and Eastern Europe -- enacted in 1990 and 1991 in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Russia -- have undergone significant amendments following their earliest enforcement period. This paper uses an analytical framework previously used to examine those original laws to examine their amended versions, and to seek to understand the degree to which the new laws are friendly to competition and the market. In addition, the new Romanian competition law is subjected to the same examination. The conclusion is that the amendments to the laws have generally clarified ambiguities, improved the abilities of the competition offices to intervene in the market in a procompetitive manner, and increased the "harmonisation" of the laws with the competition law regime of the European Union.