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The Catalan Competition Authority has opened a public call for companies to apply for the award of grants for the financing of compliance programmes in the field of competition.

On June 17th2022, Resolution of June 10th2022, of the President of the Catalan Competition Authority’s (ACCO), was published in the Official Journal of the Generalitat de Catalunya (DOGC), opening the deadline to apply for public subsidies to finance companies’ competition compliance programmes for which they can apply until July 29th 2022.

The main purpose of the initiative is to introduce competition compliance into the general compliance programmes, so that companies can both avoid and react to the prohibited conducts contemplated in Law 15/2007, of July 3, on the Defence of Competition. This legislation bans agreements between companies that restrict competition, market abuses by dominant companies and distortion of competition through unfair acts.

The referred public subsidy is being awarded in a regulatory context that broadens the compliance obligations of SMEs. Indeed, Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons reporting breaches of EU law establishes, among other measures, that companies with more than 50 employees must introduce internal reporting channels for breaches of EU law, including competition law. This directive is pending transposition in Spain. On March 4th2022, the Council of Ministers approved the Preliminary Draft Law to protect people who report breaches of the law. It is expected that its final adoption will take place before the end of this year. Once this law comes into force, companies will have three months to implement the planned information system. It is therefore advisable that compnies begin to take the necessary measures to implement new obligations.

Companies that wish to apply for the ACCO subsidy will have to be subject to the regulatory bases set out in the Resolution of April 28th 2022, also published in the DOGC.

According to the regulatory bases, the beneficiary companies of the above-mentioned subsidies may be private companies that are SMEs and must have their registered office, or a branch or office, in Catalonia, regardless of their legal form. In this sense, the Resolution takes as a reference the meaning of “PIME” ascribed by Regulation (EU) 651/2014 (which is, companies with less than 250 employees, with an annual turnover of no more than 50 million euros and an annual balance sheet total that does not exceed 43 million euros).

At the presentation of the subsidy by ACCO, which took place on June 8th, ACCO outlined the requirements of good practices that compliance programmes must meet:

  • Raising the company’s awareness of competition compliance;
  • Introduce a risk map in order to identify competition-related risks;
  • Appointment of a compliance officer;
  • Include compliance training for all employees and collaborators;
  • Creation of a whistleblowing channel;
  • Implementation of incentive and disciplinary measures; and
  • Evaluation of the implementation by means of periodic monitoring.

The regulatory bases consider eligible expenses those derived from the preparation of all the documents that make up the compliance programme, where these have been produced by a specialised external company at the company’s request; the completion of training courses that are included in the compliance programme; as well as the establishment of a complaints channel, provided that this is commissioned from third parties.

During the presentation act, the president of the ACCO explained that the referred subsidies are ex novo which means they are aimed at companies that have begun the process of drawing up competition compliance programmes as of 16 June 2022. Therefore, companies that already have compliance programmes in place will not be eligible, although companies that wish to complete their general compliance programme with a specific competition programme may be eligible.

The applications submitted will be evaluated according to certain criteria, which will award certain number of points: the incorporation of a risk map and the matrix of controls, for example, will award up to 20 points (Criterion C); and the inclusion of training and awareness-raising actions, also up to 20 points (Criterion D).

Among the requirements for the granting of this subsidy, it is important to highlight the fact that the applicant company must not have been sanctioned, in the previous four years, for having committed a competition law infringement.

An important point to bear in mind is that the payment will be split in two: a first payment for the 30% of the subsidy, as a best estimate, as soon as the grant decision has been notified; and a second payment for the remaining 70% which will require the presentation of the supporting documents mandated by base 15 (essentially, this requires the presentation of a supporting account and proof of expenditure). The maximum amount of the subsidy is fixed at 10,000 euros.

 

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