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Bulgaria's competition watchdog imposes 150 000 leva in fines on foreign law firms

Mon, Jul 28 2008 19:20 CET

bySpasena Baramova

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Bulgaria's Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) imposed July 28 2008 a 150 000 leva fine on four foreign law firms operating in Bulgaria because of unfair commercial practices, the CPC announced in a statement on its website.

CMS Cameron McKenna was fined 50 000 leva, DLA Piper Weiss-Tessbach was fined 40 000 leva and CHSH Cerha Hempel Spiegelfeld Hlawati and CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz were given a 30 000 leva fine each. All the companies were sanctioned on the grounds of breaching Bulgaria's Law on Protection of Competition.

The main accusations focused on the fact that the defendant foreign law firms are registered and operate in the country as commercial enterprises, while according to the Attorneys' Act, they need to be registered explicitly as law firms. Furthermore, to comply with the law, the names of the law firms can be composed only of the names of the partners registered in one of Bulgaria's bar associations. This is fiercely opposed by the foreign lawyers in the country as to them, being able to operate under the name with which they are internationally recognised is vital for the success of their business.

The case against the foreign lawyers was launched with the CPC earlier in 2008 by 11 Bulgarian law firms, who accused eight of the biggest foreign law companies in Bulgaria of violating the country's Attorneys' Act and of unethical behaviour. The CPC was expected to issue its decision soon after the July 22 hearing of the case.

In an official statement following the issuing of the CPC decision, the four fined companies said they would appeal against it to Bulgaria's Supreme Administrative Court.

"Let us remind that the conflict centres on demands that law firms opening offices in Bulgaria must be owned exclusively by attorneys registered with a Bulgarian Bar and practise exclusively under the names of such attorneys. In fact this is a limitation of competition and the specific rules for the implementation of the freedom of establishment of lawyers and law firms under European Union legislation" the statement said. "The Attorney's Act is structural and defines the status of the attorney as a professional, it does not contain regulations for commercial activities. Consequently, a breach of  the Act cannot result in an infraction based on unfair commercial activities, as provided for in the Law on the Protection of Competition" the companies said.

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