Israel Parliament Approves A Major Reform of The Antitrust Law
On January 1st, 2019, the Israeli parliament – the Knesset, passed a major reform to the Restrictive Trade Practices Law, 5748-1988 (the “Amendment” and the “Law”). In the framework of the Amendment, the name of the Law was changed to the “Economic Competition Law”, the name of the Israeli Antitrust Authority was changed to the “Competition Authority” (the “ICA”) and the name of the Antitrust Tribunal was changed to the “Competition Tribunal”. The reform, which was advocated by the ICA, introduces extensive and significant changes to the three main chapters of the Law – restrictive arrangements, monopoly and merger control. The Amendment also increases further the ICA’s enforcement powers and the scope of criminal and administrative sanctions for violations of the Law. The reform is based on ‘a carrot and a stick’ concept – decreasing unnecessary regulatory burden on business practices which are legitimate and competitively benign, while at the same time improving the ICA’s ability to combat anticompetitive behavior.
