RAIL BALTICA BUSINESS NETWORK ESTONIA
GUIDELINES
FOR COMPLIANCE WITH COMPETITION LAW

Rail Baltica Business Netvork Estonia (RBBN) acknowledges and complies with the key PRINCIPLES arising from applicable competition law, including:

  • protection of competition for the benefit of free enterprise;
  • preventing and eliminating restriction, elimination and distortion of competition.

RBBN as a forum (between undertakings) is connected in two ways with the principles of competition law:

  • RBBN as an organisation: RBBN decisions must not restrict competition;
  • RBBN as a meeting place / forum: interactions are subject to restrictions of competition law.

PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES: Competition law prohibits all agreements between undertakings, concerted practices and decisions of an association of undertaking, which have an anti-competitive objective or effect, including:

  • direct or indirect fixing of price and other trading conditions for third parties;
  • limiting of production, service, product market, technical development or investment ;
  • sharing a goods market or source of supply, including restricting access of a third party to the goods market or attempts to exclude him/her from there;
  • exchange of information which restricts competition;
  • agreeing on the implementation of different conditions for equivalent agreements which put business partners at a competitive disadvantage;
  • imposing on third parties a requirement for taking additional obligations for the conclusion of an agreement that are not related to the subject-matter of the agreement.

Consequently, THE FOLLOWING SHALL NOT BE DISCUSSED IN THE FRAMEWORK OF RBBN:

  • participation in future (public) procurements without a clear need for a joint tender;
  • “allocation” of procurement and other contracts / markets / customer relationships, including the submission of “additional” bids;
  • pricing (future bids), including coordination of pricing policies (including those that initially seem fair and just);
  • exchange of non-public information that is sensitive to competition (in particular forward-looking information that allows for predicting the market behaviour of a particular undertaking);
  • a collective boycott of third parties or other (unfavorable) restrictions on them.

At RBBN meetings:

  • we keep minutes of substantive discussions and keep those discussions within the framework of the RBBN objectives;
  • we ensure that the exchange of information and documents between members takes into account the above.