The Slovak Agriculture and Food Chamber (SPPK) has come out in support of a draft bill that aims to protect suppliers against unfair trade practices from retail chains, which has been submitted for interdepartmental review.
Chamber deputy chairman Dušan Janíček said the SPPK is analysing the details of the draft bill, but the organisation agrees it is necessary to amend the law on relations between retail chains and their suppliers.
The current law on retail chains – which lets chains escalate their demands towards suppliers – has not worked in the past, the chamber said. Janíček said economic competition laws cannot be applied either, because retail chains have acquired a dominant position as a whole and not as individual business entities.
The retail chains got control of a decisive market segment and they apply the same or similar practices towards their suppliers, which would be eliminated by the draft bill, he said.
The bill would take effect as of February of next year. The draft would ban retailers from selling products or services to consumers for a price lower than the production costs or the purchase price of the goods. The draft bill also limits listing fees that retail chains would be able to demand from suppliers for listing a product or its placement at a certain spot in the store.
-SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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