Serbian competition rules dealing with agreements
restricting competition are largely taken from and harmonized with
EU competition rules. There is, however, one difference: in Serbia,
if a restrictive agreement does not benefit from the local block
exemption regulation ("BER"), the parties cannot
self-assess whether their agreement meets the criteria comparable
to those stipulated in Article 101(3) of the Treaty on the
Functioning of the European Union. Instead, the parties must notify
the agreement to the Serbian Commission for the Protection of
Competition ("Commission") and request that it is
individually exempted from the legal restriction.
Obtaining the exemption can take time (in practice, up
to six or seven months). Companies suspecting competition concerns
should take this into consideration as early as possible when
negotiating local agreements. Furthermore, an individual exemption
cannot be granted for more than 8 years.
