The antitrust lawyers of Dimitrov, Petrov & Co. employ profound knowledge in competition and antitrust law matters combined with economic and regulatory expertise. The competition law experts have developed extensive practice in a number of cases. The firm has represented clients in numerous cases before the Bulgarian Commission on Protection of Competition (CPC) regarding merger control, unfair trade practices, abuse of dominant position, and cartel cases.
Dimitrov, Petrov & Co. has advised and defended many companies’ interests in merger control notifications, including in foreign-to-foreign mergers having impact on Bulgarian market participants. Thus, in the spring of 2007 Dimitrov, Petrov & Co. assisted a leading international pharmaceutical company to receive a merger clearance by the CPC. In 2008 Dimitrov, Petrov & Co. provided comprehensive support and expertise in the clearance procedure before the CPC regarding the purchase of the largest Russian manufacturer of rolling stock and related equipment, by the national railway operator.
The lawyers of Dimitrov, Petrov & Co. have also successfully defended the interests of the new entrants before the CPC and reached issuance of some landmark decisions of the competition authority. With a decision from June 2005 the CPC established abuse of dominant position of the incumbent operator and imposed an obligation to the incumbent to offer contracts for provision of bitstream access to its competitors. The CPC’s decision was confirmed by the last instance, the Supreme Administrative Court and entered into force in December 2006. As a result, in early 2007 the incumbent finally proposed its first draft contract for provision of bitstream access to its competitors and in January 2008 the first bitstream access agreements were concluded.
