An examination of the present competition law of Georgia using Pittman's criteria.(Republic of Georgia)

I. Introduction

In the spring 1998 issue of The Antitrust Bulletin, an article by William Kovacic and Ben Slay described and discussed the establishment of the competition law regime of the Republic of Georgia. (1) In the most recent volume of the Georgian European Legal Review, an article by Alexander Tushuri (deputy director of Georgia-European Policy and Legal Advice Center [GEPLAC] for legal issues) and Tato Urjumelashvili (a legal expert of GEPLAC), compared the Georgian competition legislation with EU legislation. (2) In this connection, and in response to the need for improvement of the law and harmonization with the European legislation, it would be interesting to evaluate the law of Georgia under the analytical framework used by Russell Pittman (Director of Economic Research in the Economic Analysis Group of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice) to examine the competition laws of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in 1992 and 5 years later. (3)

The Pittman criteria for evaluation include the following:

1. Does the law distinguish between horizontal and vertical agreements?

2. Does the law treat horizontal cartel agreements as per se illegal?

3. Does the law restrict vertical agreements by firms lacking market power?

4. Do the provisions restricting the behavior of dominant firms make it too easy for a firm to be labeled dominant?