Slovenia’s Public Agency for the Protection of Competition (AVK) has issued an urgent call to action, rallying the public and industry insiders to report unauthorized and unfair trading practices within the agricultural and food supply chains. Despite operating with a lean team of just 32 employees, the regulatory agency carries a massive social responsibility. Its daily operations focus heavily on dismantling restrictive corporate agreements that stifle healthy market competition, while also carefully reviewing mergers and tracking down unnotified corporate takeovers that threaten to distort the domestic marketplace.
To stay ahead of complex global market tactics, AVK’s representatives regularly collaborate with the world’s leading competition authorities. The agency maintains active roles within the European Competition Network (ECN), the International Competition Network (ICN), the Association of European Competition Regulators (ECA), and the OECD’s Competition Committee. AVK leverages this international expertise directly at home to enforce Slovenia’s Food Act, which explicitly tasks the regulator with protecting farmers and smaller suppliers from being squeezed out by massive buyers who abuse their significant market power.
Under the framework of the Food Act, the agency has the authority to administratively sanction any buyer exploiting vulnerable suppliers in violation of good business practices. Crucially, certain contractual conditions are deemed inherently unfair and completely illegal under the law, meaning they remain prohibited even if a smaller supplier felt pressured into agreeing to them. In order to keep the food supply chain fair and resilient, the AVK stresses that constant vigilance is required and urges anyone witnessing these unlawful pressures to come forward and report them immediately.
