This paper presents the basic elements of the Polish anti-cartel regime and suggests what potential changes would be likely to improve it. Considered here are: the legal framework of anti-cartel enforcement in Poland as well as the performance of the Polish antitrust authority in its fight against cartels. Special attention is devoted to the substantive provisions of the cartel prohibition, investigatory powers of the antitrust authority, including the leniency programme, and the arsenal of sanctions available in cartels cases. The paper will show that Poland has sound anti-cartel laws and an antitrust authority determined to enforce them effectively. Notwithstanding its generally positive conclusions, the paper will conclude with some suggestions de lege ferenda which are likely to improve the Polish anti-cartel regime making its fight against cartels more dynamic.

In the face of continuing and increasing globalisation and the proliferation of national and regional competition laws, international competition law and policy has become over the last two decades one of the hottest and most widely discussed topics in the area of antitrust. As a result, extensive scholarly literature has accumulated on this subject. Dr. Bartosz Michalski of the University of Wrocław (Institute of International Relations) has given his readers a very approachable book, which may not be a novelty to the cognoscenti, familiar with the extensive foreign writings on international competition law and policy, but which still manages to make a major contribution to the rather scarce Polish literature on this topic.