Žmogaus teisių ir pagrindinių laisvių apsaugos konvencijoje įtvirtintų įmonių teisių apsaugos problemos ES konkurencijos teisėje

Abstract

The subject matter of this research is in the ECHR enshrined rights of the companies which may be used as defence rights in EU competition law. European Court of Human Rights has confirmed variety of ECHR guarantees for legal persons, which after the EU accession to the ECHR will be very relevant to the companies suspected or accused of the EU competition law violation. Nevertheless, thesis is limited to investigating only the company's right to privacy, the right against self-incrimination, the right to be heard, the right to legal professional privilege, as well as the principle of ne bis in idem principle, enshrined in the Article 4 of Protocol 7 of the ECHR. The first part of the dissertation reveals the formation of the EU's fundamental rights doctrine, asseses the perspectives of the EU fundamental rights treatment by the European Court of Human Rights, investigates whether the Court for the legal persons recognizes the same scope of concrete rights as it does for the individuals, also analyzes if the investigations of the EU competition law infringements is considered to be criminal for the purposes of the ECHR. The second part deals with the right against self-incrimination and the related powers of the Commission to require information during competition law infringement investigations; the right to be heard, which is split into two parts - the right of access to the file and the right to comment on the statement of charges; protection of the lawyers and their clients communication confidentiality. The third part analyzes Commission's investigatory powers and evaluates them according to the right to privacy, enshrined in Article 8 paragraph 1 of the ECHR. The fourth part reveals the concept of the ne bis in idem principle and analyses problematic issues of parallel competence to apply EU competition law.