Consumer & Competition Division

Commission for Fair Trading - About Us

The Commission for Fair Trading is set up in terms of the Competition Act (ACT XXXI of 1994, as amended by Acts XXVIII of 2000, IV of 2003 and III of 2004), Chapter 379 of the Laws of Malta. The Act regulates competition and provides for fair trading in Malta. The full text of the act can be accessed from :
http://docs.justice.gov.mt/lom/legislation/english/leg/vol_10/chapt379.pdf Article 4 of the Competition Act states that there shall be a Commission to be known as the Commission for Fair Trading. It is composed of a President and two members appointed by the President of Malta on the advice of the Prime Minister. The President of the Commission shall be a Magistrate and the two other members shall be an economist and a certified public accountant. More than one Magistrate, one economist and one certified public accountant may be appointed to sit on the Commission, but only one Magistrate, one economist and one certified public accountant shall sit in any one case.

The members of the Commission, other than its President, referred to as "the lay members", are appointed for a period of three years and are eligible for reappointment. The lay members of the Commission may resign their office by letter addressed to the President of Malta but may not be removed except by the President of Malta acting on the recommendation of the Commission for the Administration of Justice. Notice of all appointments to the Commission and of all other changes in its membership shall be published in the Malta Government Gazette – the official media.

A person is not qualified to be a lay member of the Commission if such person:
(i) is an undischarged bankrupt; or
(ii) has been sentenced to imprisonment for six months or more by any court; or
(iii) has been found guilty for any offence against this Act; or
(iv) is a Member of the House of Representatives.

Any member of the Commission shall, before the commencement of any case, declare any interest the member may have in the proceedings.

The Minister responsible for justice shall appoint a public officer to be secretary to the Commission. The secretary shall mutatis mutandis have the same powers and duties of the Registrar of Courts, taking instructions from the President of the Commission in all circumstances in accordance with the Code of Organization and Civil Procedure.

The Commission may with the approval of the Minister make rules not inconsistent with this Act or the provisions of the Schedule thereto, prescribing the procedures and the forms to be followed and used before it. In the absence of provisions or rules as aforesaid the Commission shall regulate its own procedures.

Apart from acting as an appellate body able to review all the decisions and orders of the Director of the Office for Fair Competition, the Commission for Fair Trading also decides cases in the first instance, referred to it by the Director of the Office for Fair Competition in terms of Article 12A, where it results to the Director following an investigation that a serious infringement, having regard to the gravity and duration of the infringement, of Article 5 prohibiting anti-competitive collusive practices or Article 9 prohibiting abuse of a dominant position or any infringement of Articles 81 or 82 of the EC Treaty has occurred. In such cases, it is also within the Commission’s exclusive jurisdiction to issue cease and desist orders or compliance orders in respect of such infringements. The Commission also has sole jurisdiction under Article 15 to issue interim measures to suspend any restrictive practice under investigation if it is urgently necessary to avoid a situation likely to cause serious, immediate and irreparable prejudice to the interests of any undertaking, or to harm the general economic interest. Moreover, questions concerning the anti-competitiveness or otherwise of agreements, decisions, practices or conduct in terms of the provisions of the Competition Act that may arise before courts of civil jurisdiction are referred to the Commission for its determination.

The Commission also serves as the appellate body that reviews the decisions taken by the Director of the Office for Fair Competition in merger proceedings under the Control of Concentrations Regulations (LN 294 of 2002, as amended by LN 299 of 2002 and LN 49 of 2007).