Who safeguards the competition in the energy market? Between the President of the Energy Regulatory Office and President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection — selected issues

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss the selected issues concerning the mutual relations between the President of the Energy Regulatory Office and President of the Office of Competition and Con-sumer Protection. The outline of the distinction of powers of both authorities resulting from the case of law of the Supreme Court and views expressed in the doctrine is presented. Based on the exam-ples of third-party access rule and the provisions stipulated in the REMIT regulation, the author intended to prove the claim that the assignments of both authorities are complementary and the cooperation between them is indispensable. It is also indicated that the variety of practices which could be implemented by the energy enterprises requires the collaboration between the authorities within the framework of the shared competences. In order to demonstrate that the provisions of sector specific regulations and provisions of competition law might both be applicable to very sim-ilar factual situations, the author presented the decisions taken by the European Commission and national authorities in other member states. Concluding the deliberations expressed in this paper it is claimed that the key issue for fulfilling the objective consisting of providing the effective mechanism of competition protection is the cooperation and willingness to perform existing competences by both authorities safeguarding competition in the energy sector.