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It is a generally accepted truth that the United Kingdom has neither a general statute protecting traders against unfair competition nor has it developed a general tort of unfair competition.^1 However, if one examines judicial dicta this conclusion appears less certain. For example, recently in Arsenal v. Reed (2003)^2, the ECJ set out important principles as to when use of a registered trade mark is infringing use.^3 However, in the United Kingdom where the case originated, Arsenal v. Reed has also been widely touted as the case in which the Court of Appeal finally recognised that domestic law does indeed encompass a general tort of unfair competition. In the case, the claimants were a football club who had a number of registered trade marks, including the word “Arsenal” and a shield logo, registered against a range of goods, including clothing; the defendant Mr. Reed was a trader who had sold clothing carrying the Arsenal trade marks outside the Club’s ground for many years. The claimant brought an action against Mr. Reed for registered trade mark infringement, which raised the questions subsequently addressed by the ECJ. The Club also sued Mr. Reed in the tort of passing off. In his judgement, Lord Justice Aldous noted obiter that the “cause of action traditionally called passing off, [is] perhaps best referred to as unfair competition”.^4 In making this observation, Lord Justice Aldous took as his authority a statement made by Mr. Justice Cross as long ago as 1969^5 referring to another passing off case, Bollinger and Costa Brava Wine ^6, decided in 1960.

Act LVII of 1996 on Prohibition of Unfair and Restrictive Market Practices (henceforth: Hungarian Competition Act) has a rather specific nature since it covers provisions relating to both competition-restricting practices (antitrust law) and unfair market practices of undertakings. The common rationale behind this composition of competition rules is set by the preamble of the Competition Act: “The public interest attached to the maintenance of competition on the market ensuring efficiency and social progress, the interests of undertakings complying with the requirements of business fairness and the interests of consumers require the State to protect by law fairness and freedom of economic competition”. This phrasing refers to the preamble of Act XX of 1949 — the Constitution of the Republic of Hungary declaring social market economy as an overall aim as well as to Article 9 of the Hungarian Constitution stating that the Republic of Hungary recognises and supports the right to enterprise and the freedom of economic competition. Based on this constitutional framework, competition rules create a system of so-called “institutional protection” directed towards the institution of economic competition, and the free and undistorted competition process.

The law against unfair competition is now regarded as a relatively independent part of commercial law in the Czech Republic. This is true above all in legislation (see below) and in the academic field — in the curricula of the legal faculties. In the academic institutions and in a number of new private universities, this law is considered within the context of intellectual property law.

This article deals with the legal regulation of unfair competition in the Slovak Republic regarding the general inclusion of unfair competition law in the system of laws in Slovakia and its special division into the law against illegal restriction of economic competition and unfair competition law. The conception of unfair competition law in the Slovakian legal system, and in the relation to other branches of law is considered as well.

The basis of competition law in Slovenia is represented by a series of constitutional provisions enabling the independence of legal entities.^1 The main constitutional provisions are as follows: Art. 33, private property rights; Art. 49, rights on the freedom of employment; Art. 74, freedom of commercial initiative; Art. 74(2) the prohibition of unfair competition; and Art. 74(4) on certain acts restricting competition. Article 74(4) is a quite a nomotechnical curiosity in comparative constitutional law. Even though the Constitution introduced a negative definition for the restriction of competition (i.e. the following acts are shall be prohibited ...), restrictions may not be considered as absolute because the subsumption is left over to the law.

With respect to the topic of this article, reference must be made to two extraordinarily important events in recent Polish history: above all to the unusual phenomenon of the 20^th century in the form of the major social movement “Solidarnosc”, which triggered radical political changes in Poland and in other countries of eastern and central Europe. The consequence of this movement was the transformation of the centrally controlled economy into an economic system based on private property and competition. Market economy institutions have been created in Poland. The privatisation process of state enterprises has continued without interruption, with the result that today the majority of these businesses are present on the market as private economy enterprises. This event also had extensive consequences for the development of the Polish legal system. This includes the “rebirth” of the Law on the Combating of Unfair Competition, which was devoid of all importance in the period of the centrally controlled real socialist economy. Even though the Law against Unfair Competition of 1926^1 remained formally in effect, it was enforced neither by the ordinary courts nor by the state arbitration commissions that were responsible for settling disputes between the various state-owned enterprises (i.e. nationalised enterprise, cooperatives, etc.). The situation only changed towards the end of the 1980s. A second historically important event was Poland’s accession to the European Union on May 1, 2004. Irrespective of the important consequence of this fact in the short and long term, Poland’s membership of the EU represents an opportunity to complete the market economy developments of recent years while making use of the collection of legal instruments common to all the Member States of the European Community.

The legal institution of unfair competition law is protected and regulated in all three Baltic States by Art. 10bis of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and by a number of specific pieces of legislation. Unfair competition law in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is essentially characterised by the following features: Firstly, none of the three Baltic States have a comprehensive act against unfair competition; Secondly, the legal provisions that provide protection against unfair competition in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are regarded as part of the field of competition law (only with respect to regulation); Thirdly, there are also a number of specific provisions in individual pieces of legislation and in general civil law. The competition laws of the three Baltic States cover both the provisions concerning the competitive system and the rules against unfair competition.