The Croatian Parliament passed the Act on the Prohibition of Unfair Trading Practices in the Food Supply Chain ("Act") on 7 December 2017. The "implementation period" for all stakeholders concerned to make their contracts and sales compliant with the Act ended on 31 March 2018.
The Act is in fact a competition law statute, both in the procedural part (the responsible authority for its implementation is the CCA) and the substantive part (it sets out new rules on rebates, payment policies and similar). The Act seeks to regulate trading practices in the food supply chain from top down by protecting the "suppliers" within the meaning of the Act.
The Act applies to buyers, food processors or merchants within the meaning of the Act, that hold a "significant bargaining power" and engage in one or more of almost 40 unfair trading practices. An undertaking is considered to have "significant bargaining power", if the group's consolidated turnover in Croatia in the preceding business year exceeded HRK 50 million for buyers/food processors or HRK 100 million for merchants.
The Act penalises four groups of infringements, with fines for material breach ranging up to HRK 5 million and up to HRK 100,000 for procedural infringements.
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