CROATIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Ivan Gržić, TUS & GRŽIĆ
include fines, prohibitions on activities and other measures prescribed by the statute. 3.6 Cartels and Anti-Competitive Offences In the Croatian legal system, competition law infringe - ments, including cartel conduct, are primarily regu - lated by administrative law, while criminal protection exists only indirectly through general offences under the Criminal Code. Cartel conduct is mainly governed by the Competition Act (Zakon o zaštiti tržišnog natjecanja – ZZTN), which prohibits agreements that prevent, restrict or distort competition, including price-fixing, market-sharing, output limitation and exchange of sensitive infor - mation. Such conduct is not a criminal offence but an administrative infringement, sanctioned by fines imposed by the AZTN, which may reach up to 10% of annual turnover. Administrative law also covers abuse of a dominant position (eg, unfair pricing, discrimina - tion, tying) and unauthorised concentrations. These are likewise subject to fines and corrective measures. The Criminal Code does not provide a specific cartel offence, but certain anti-competitive practices may, depending on the circumstances, fall within general criminal offences. 3.7 Counterfeiting The Criminal Code of the Republic of Croatia con - tains a broad range of counterfeiting offences that should be precisely covered, and which are distrib - uted across several chapters of the Criminal Code depending on the protected legal interest (authentic - ity of documents, security of payment transactions, public health, etc). In the area of payment transactions and the financial system, these include: • forgery of a document (Article 278 of the Criminal Code) – making a false document or altering a genuine document and using it as genuine; • forgery of an official or business document (Articles 279 and 281 of the Criminal Code) – entering false data into official or business documents;
• certification of untrue content (Articles 281/282 of the Criminal Code) – misleading an authority into certifying untrue content; • counterfeiting of money (Article 274 of the Crimi - nal Code) – making counterfeit money or altering genuine money and putting it into circulation; • counterfeiting of securities (Article 276 of the Crimi - nal Code) – making or altering securities with the intention of using them as genuine; counterfeiting of value signs (Article 277 of the Criminal Code) – relating to stamps, tax stamps and similar indicia of value; and • misuse of a non-cash payment instrument and related offences, including the making, procuring, possessing or making available means for the mis - use of non-cash payment instruments (Article 244a and related provisions of the Criminal Code). In the area of documents and identity, these include: • misuse of an identity document (Article 280 of the Criminal Code) – using another person’s or an inva - lid identity document as one’s own; and • making, procuring, possessing or making available means for counterfeiting (Article 283 of the Criminal Code) – criminalising preparatory acts for counter - feiting, which demonstrates a high level of protec - tion of legal transactions. In the area of cybercrime, there is computer forgery (Article 270 of the Criminal Code) – ie, entering, alter - ing or deleting computer data with the intention that such data be used as authentic, thereby effectively simulating a “digital document”. In the area of protection of health and safety, there is counterfeiting of medicines or medical products (Arti - cle 185 of the Criminal Code) – ie, manufacturing or placing on the market counterfeit medicines or medi - cal products, which constitutes a particularly serious offence because of the danger posed to human health. As regards criminal offences against intellectual prop - erty, the Criminal Code regulates them in a separate chapter (Chapter XXVII), with the most important being:
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