CYPRUS Law and Practice Contributed by: Marios Pelides and Dominique Pelides, Georgiades & Pelides
6. Ancillary Restraints and Related Transactions 6.1 Clearance Decisions and Separate Notifications No specific legislative provision is made for related arrangements (ancillary restraints) to be captured in clearance decisions and, in practice, they are not commonly captured. 7. Third-Party Rights, Confidentiality and Cross-Border Co-Operation 7.1 Third-Party Rights Where the CPC decides to proceed with a Phase II investigation, a person who is not a party to the concentration but may nevertheless be directly affected by the CPC’s decision in relation to the concentration may petition the CPC to submit their views in relation to the concentration. This may be done in writing or as part of an oral hear - ing. Relevant third parties might include: • competitors of the undertakings participating in the concentration; • customers of such undertakings; • consumer protection organisations; and • employee representative bodies. The CPC also has the right, where it decides to proceed to a Phase II investigation, to enter into negotiations or discussions or conduct hearings with any person, where this would (in the CPC’s view) assist it in its investigation. No third-party views are usually invited in the context of a Phase I investigation.
5.5 Conditions and Timing for Divestitures
Where the CPC decides to approve a concen - tration subject to conditions and/or remedies, it will include details of such conditions and/or remedies in its approval decision. If a transaction is implemented without full com - pliance with any remedies or conditions set out in the CPC’s approval, the CPC may impose a fine of up to 10% of the total turnover of the rele - vant party for the preceding year. Additional fines (up to EUR8,000 per day) may be imposed for each day the breach continues. The CPC may also withdraw its approval or modify the terms upon which the approval was issued. Lastly, the CPC also has the power to order that a concentration put into effect without full com - pliance with applicable remedies or conditions be (wholly or partly) reversed or disbanded, but only to the extent that this is reasonably nec - essary to restore functional competition on the relevant market. 5.6 Issuance of Decisions The CPC will typically issue a formal decision permitting or prohibiting a transaction within the applicable deadlines. If the CPC fails to issue a decision within the stated deadline, clearance is deemed given. Non-confidential versions of decisions are pub - lished in the Official Gazette of Cyprus, as well as on the CPC’s website. 5.7 Prohibitions and Remedies for Foreign-to-Foreign Transactions Recent remedies imposed by the CPC are out - lined in 5.2 Parties’ Ability to Negotiate Rem- edies , although none of the cases concerned foreign-to-foreign transactions.
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