Personal liability of managers of undertakings for infringements of competition law in the Republic of Lithuania: the sanctions regime from the perspective of the principle of legal certainty

Abstract

This article focuses on the personal liability of managers of undertakings for breaches of competition law. This article starts with a review of the sanction regime for managers of undertakings according to the Competition law of the Republic of Lithuania. Reviewed are legal provisions and judicial practice of the Lithuanian courts starting from 2017, that is, when the first request to sanction a manager of an undertaking was submitted to the court by the Competition Council (CC). It is pointed out that in most cases the courts do not fully accept the requests of the CC with respect to the severity of the sanctions to be imposed on managers. The second part of the Article comprehensively analyses the case-law of administrative courts of the Republic of Lithuania, and presents key elements of the imposition of sanctions on company managers. Firstly, in exceptional circumstances, courts may impose a lower penalty than the one specified by competition law. Secondly, the courts may impose both, the main sanction as well as an additional one, or any of them. Thirdly, the level of sanctions should be determined the light of the fines imposed on undertakings for their infringements of competition law. The article concludes with a short summary.