Vlatka Butorac Malnar

Interpretation and Application of the New York Convention in Croatia

Implementation of the New York Convention in Croatia has benefitted substantially from the creation of an arbitration-friendly legal regime. However, as in many other jurisdictions, the courts in Croatia are tackling several issues left unresolved by the New York Convention. This report examines the legal regime in Croatia and identifies certain unresolved issues currently being considered by the Croatian courts.

The Kone Case: A Missed Opportunity to Put the Standard of Causation Under the Umbrella of the EU

In 2014, the CJEU rendered a very interesting judgment in the Kone case, for the first time addressing the issue of the admissibility of claims for damages caused by umbrella pricing. This paper focuses on the most intriguing issues surrounding umbrella claims, in particular the issue of causation.

SGEI in Croatia: The Legal Framework for Economic Necessity

This paper aims to introduce and analyse the regulatory framework of SGEI in the youngest EU Member State - the Republic of Croatia – and thereby contribute to the existing debate on the topic. The paper addresses the Croatian regulatory and policy choices relating to a number of SGEIs from the perspective of State aid law, whereby all publicly available national decisions were analysed against the criteria of the latest EU SGEI Package. The research reveals a lack of clear terminology pointing to a far more complicated issue: conceptual inconsistencies of the legal vocabulary often used interchangeably by the decision-making bodies. This makes it very hard to reconcile the EU notion of SGEI as a universal notion with local national concepts of public services mostly determined by the socialistic heritage of the country on the one hand, and legal tradition regarding matters of public administration on the other. The paper points out the inefficiencies of what is revealed to be a fragmented approach to the topic of public services and their financing, and it also forwards the idea of an all- encompassing legislative reform.