In a recent ruling, the Czech Supreme Administrative Court (“SAC”) ruled against the Office for the Protection of Competition (“Office”) in a case involving the legality of dawn raid practices. The SAC concluded that use of generic key words such as “settle” (“narovn”) in searching for documents is unjustifiably extensive, as it falls outside of the subject matter of the investigation authorisation. See our key takeaways below.

Case background

As part of an investigation, the Office conducted a dawn raid of HP TRONIC Zlín, spol. s r.o. (“HP TRONIC”), seizing numerous documents. HP TRONIC challenged the legality of obtaining the documents. The first assessment by the Regional Court in Brno and the SAC concluded that the seizure was only legal insofar as the documents related to the specific brands of electrical appliances which were identified in the investigation authorisation. 

Unrelated keywords yield inadmissible documents

The second assessment by the Regional Court and subsequently the SAC focused namely on whether documents obtained using given key words were sufficiently related to the subject matter of the investigation. One of the documents was obtained through a search using the keyword “narovn”, which can be loosely translated as “settle”. The courts found that this term was too generic and did not have a clear connection to the alleged anti-competitive behaviour. As a result, the courts ruled that the document seized using this keyword was inadmissible as evidence.

The SAC confirmed that a document cannot be obtained in a dawn raid using a generic keyword, if its connection to the investigated conduct is not obvious or duly explained by the Office. In contrast, the SAC concluded that another document obtained using a keyword of a specific product related to the investigation was obtained legitimately. 

Where is the causal link?

The SAC decision demonstrates the extent to which dawn raid practices are subject to judicial scrutiny. Companies going through a dawn raid should be mindful of the causal link between the investigation and the grounds for seizure of their documents. If this causal link seems to be absent, a challenge in court may be successful.

The SAC decision can be found here (in Czech only).

If you need more information or further guidance in this area, please contact Vojtěch Chloupek, Martin Taimr and Matej Šinkovic.

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