The Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition (KZK) has published an Instruction on the protection of data in proceedings for establishing unfair trading practices, together with a form that allows parties to precisely identify which information in their submissions should be excluded from the publicly available version of the case file. This is particularly relevant for businesses in the food supply chain – suppliers and buyers – involved in proceedings before the KZK under the rules prohibiting unfair trading practices.

Three categories of protected data

The Instruction distinguishes between:

• Trade secrets – technical, financial and production data, business plans, and information on customers and suppliers, which require evidence of measures taken to preserve confidentiality.
• Commercially sensitive information – data that is not secret as such, but whose disclosure could cause harm, including information that would allow the identity of the complainant to be established.
• Confidential data – primarily the identity of a party to the proceedings, where disclosure could cause significant harm.

How to request protection?

A request is filed on the prescribed form, either together with the submission or within eight days of its filing at the latest. For each piece of data, the request must state: its exact location in the document (page/section), the type of protection sought, the reasoning behind the request, and a proposal for how the data should be labelled in the publicly available version.

What this means for businesses?

Businesses can now actively participate in proceedings before the KZK – including by filing initiatives to open proceedings against an unfair trading partner in the supply chain – while protecting sensitive business information and, where relevant, their own identity from disclosure to the other party or the public.
Our firm assists businesses in preparing initiatives and submissions before the KZK, including properly completing data protection requests, to ensure both effective enforcement of their rights and adequate protection of their business interests.

This article is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice, nor does it substitute for individual legal consultation. For advice tailored to your specific situation, please contact us directly.