Financial Services, Legislation, Lithuania, Markets and Companies

Parliament supported President Dalia Grybauskaite's veto over amendments to the Law on Competition. 79 MPs voted for the rejection of the amended law, 2 voted against with 18 abstentions.

As reported, Grybauskaite has vetoed the amendments to the Law on Competition which provide maximum penalty of up to LTL 150,000 (EUR 43,500) to economic entities for grave competition breaches.

The president believes that the amendments would have provided an opportunity for large companies to evade substantial fines for grave competition violations.

The president's Advisor Rasa Svetikaite had said that the proposed law would have introduced flawed regulation, providing for creation of oligopolies. The president's decree read that the maximum LTL 150,000 (EUR 43,500) fine would have been inadequate and disproportionate to the gravity of violations. It would not have provided a possibility to take into account the size of an entity and differentiate fines.