State aid — from tax relief to loans and guarantees — acts directly on market competition, and that is precisely why the Law on Competition subjects its grant to special control. The architecture of this page follows the statute itself: prohibition first, then exceptions, the agreement procedure, and the right to challenge granted aid.
The Rule: What Is Prohibited
Article 12 sets the general rule: prohibited is state aid in any form, to an economic agent or to a particular kind of activity, which impedes competition or creates a threat of its impediment. The concept of aid is broad: exemption from, reduction of or deferral of tax, write-off of debt, restructuring, loans on favourable terms, transfer of assets, monetary assistance, guarantees of profit and other benefits.
Article 3 defines the players: an economic agent is a person who, regardless of residency, carries out entrepreneurial activity, while the grantor of state aid is an organ of the state, of an autonomous republic or of a municipality — and also a non-commercial legal entity, a public-law legal entity, an enterprise in which the state’s participating share exceeds 50 per cent, or an intermediary economic agent acting in the state’s name.