Sanctions against unfair competition

Prize competitions and sweepstakes organised by companies to promote their products might be sanctioned as deputies have decided that these activities are unfair competition. The Chamber of Deputies yesterday endorsed a draft law to prevent unfair competition and the final vote will be granted next week.

One of the voted articles stipulates that unfair competition is represented by “contract concluding as well as performing a sales system that enables the purchaser to get a prize depending exclusively on sweepstakes or hazard.”

According to the same law, the dismissal or luring of one particular company’s employees with a view to establishing a competing company that can take the clients of the first company is illegal.

The normative act states that using a label, invention, trade mark, picture or industrial model which can be mistaken with those issued by a legitimate company or trading pirate goods prejudicing the issuer is also illegal.

The law discussed yesterday by the deputies stipulates that unfair competition is fined between 2 and 150 million lei or punished with prison between 6 and 2 years. The fines will be inflation-pegged through government decision. After the Senate endorses the law, it will be voted by both parliamentary chambers and the differences in the law text will be mediated.

On the other hand, the Deputies granted an important vote yesterday, when the ordinance regarding the private entrepreneur stimulation to establish Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) was endorsed in the presence of Premier Adrian Nastase and 11 ministers. The representatives of all parliamentary parties agreed with the law’s stipulations.

PNL President Valeriu Stoica stated that facilities and incentives meet the needs of SMEs, but the law’s procedure methodology should not restrain them. According to the Liberal leader, these incentives have a negative outcome on the budget, but exert “a positive influence in boosting the economy” and will increase the budgetary medium- and long-term revenues.