The Competition Council has received technical assistance from the WBG during all its activity. This assistance was manifested through seminars, trainings, individual and collective consultations on various investigations, etc.

Within the World Bank Group’s Competitiveness Enhancement Project (CEP-II), during 2017, the following activities were carried out:

1.       Elaboration of an info-pack for judges involved in civil cases in order to inform and raise awareness about the importance of the state aid issue in the light of national legislation (Law No. 139 of June 15, 2012) and the best applied practices in EU countries.

2.       Organizing, during September / November 2017, 4 training sessions (workshops) for a number of about 120 participants in the field of state aid who received participation certificates.

The training course included the following topics: “Notion, objectives for granting, forms of granting, notification, authorization and reporting of state aid”, “Procedure on unlawful aid and abusive aid, recovery of unlawful aid and abusive aid and of the interest “,” Liability for violating the provisions of Law no. 139 of 15.06.2012 on state aid “,” Implementation of the provisions of Articles 340 and 403 of the RM-EU Association Agreement “.

It is worth mentioning that a separate workshop was organized with the Judges of the Superior Council of Magistracy of the Republic of Moldova dedicated to the application of the competition and state aid legislation in the Republic of Moldova. Judges from the High Court of Cassation and Justice of Romania, representatives of the Romanian Competition Council and the Republic of Moldova offered training during the workshop.

The technical assistance under the World Bank Competitiveness Enhancement Project (CEP I) was aimed at improving the legislative framework on competition and building the institutional capacity of authority.

     Also, during the 2013 negotiations have been held with the representatives of the WBG to include in the framework of the second project of the World Bank Competitiveness Enhancement (CEP II), expected to be launched in late 2014, activities designed to promote competition by identifying barriers to competition in those sectors and markets where lack of competitive conditions hinder the development of competition in local and international businesses. It is essential to develop recommendations for improving national legislation to remove barriers to competition and organizing advocacy activities and trainings for judges on implementation of competition law and state aid.

     Also, at the end of 2013 another Project of WBG started, whose beneficiary is the Competition Council. The main objective of this project is to create an online information portal for state aid, which will ensure transparency of granting and usage of granted state aid, and respectively, a more efficient allocation of state resources. All the market players will benefit of the results of the Project.

     It is important to note that competition advocacy activities conducted by the Competition Council during 2013 were assessed in the Contest launched by the World Bank Group, and the Competition Council was selected for an Honorable Mention in the thematic category of “Raising awareness of private sector stakeholders and empowering consumers to deter anticompetitive behavior”.

    The aim of this contest was to highlight the role of competition in promoting competition culture. Within the contest success stories of competition authorities around the world were presented, including the Competition Council of the Republic of Moldova.

    The success stories have been focused on the activities conducted by the competition authorities to promote and encourage a competitive business environment not through mechanisms of coercion but by promoting good relations with other public entities and increasing awareness of the society on the competition benefits.

   The WBG Honorable Mention is particularly important for the Competition Council of the Republic of Moldova, being the result of joint efforts by the whole team of the competition authority in Moldova for the successful implementation of the actions and policies and also the evidence of international appreciation of these actions.