• President of UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny, together with Thomas Zych, Chairman of the ABA Antitrust Law Section, opened a conference in the series "ABA Global Seminar Series" (GSS) organised by the American Bar Chamber (ABA).
• For the first time, the conference was hosted in the Central and Eastern Europe region and takes place in Poland.

The subject of the conference – antitrust activities and competition protection – was addressed to representatives of competition authorities and practitioners of law. It was attended by representatives of European countries, in particular the EMEA region and the United States.

- We do realise that but for fair competition there can be no smoothly functioning economy. For the state and the well-being of its citizens, fair competition between commercial operators is a self-evident phenomenon. It brings benefits not only to consumers and entrepreneurs, but also to the economy as a whole. Thanks to fair competition, citizens have access to a wider range of cheaper and better quality products. We must cooperate in designing mechanisms and exchanging good practices that boost competition in Central and Eastern Europe – President of UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny said during the opening of the conference.

In the course of the meeting, important issues related to the protection of competition in the region were addressed during panel discussions.

The main topics of the discussion included:

• practice of implementing anti-trust law in Ukraine,
• trends in vertical agreements,
• current problems of antitrust organisations.

The conference organisers and participants also attempted to answer the question of whether the antitrust regulations introduced after the region's economic transformation in the 1990s had served their purpose. The recovery of markets after the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of competition and consumer protection and the current threat to consumer living standards is also a timely issue.

This year's edition of the Global Seminar Series was attended by, inter alia:

• Tomasz CHRÓSTNY - President of the Office for Competition and Consumer Protection.
• Šarūnas KESERAUSKAS – Chairman of the Competition Council, Lithuania.
• Olha PISHCHANSKA – Chairwoman of the Antimonopoly Committee, Ukraine.
• Cosmin BELACURENCU - Member of Board at Romanian Competition Council, Romania.
• Thomas ZYCH - Chairman of the American Bar Association's Antitrust Law Section, Thompson Hine LLP, United States.
• Russell DAMTOFT – Federal Trade Commission, United States.
• Aleksander STAWICKI – WKB law firm.