Bratislava, October 6, 2025 — The Administrative Court in Bratislava has dismissed Penam Slovakia‘s challenge to an inspection carried out by the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic (AMO) as part of an investigation into a suspected failure to notify a merger involving Agrofert’s acquisition of control over Prvá Bratislavská pekárenská and PEZA.
In its ruling, the Administrative Court concluded that the AMO’s actions during the inspection were fully compliant with Slovak law. It emphasized that prior judicial authorization is not required for inspections at business premises, and it also noted that neither domestic law nor the case law of the European Court of Human Rights supports such a requirement.
Penam argued that it was not a participant in the merger under investigation and therefore should not have been subject to inspection. However, the court ruled that even entities not directly involved in a concentration can be inspected if there are relevant reasons suggesting they may hold information pertinent to the case.
The company also claimed that the inspection amounted to a “fishing expedition”, alleging that AMO sought to obtain data related to third parties. The court rejected this argument, affirming that the AMO is entitled to access all information connected to the investigated business activity, regardless of the medium on which it is stored—whether on personal computers, mobile devices, or cloud storage systems.
The court stressed that the location of servers or the use of cloud storage outside the country cannot shield relevant business data from inspection. It warned that allowing such a limitation would seriously hinder or even prevent the authority from conducting effective investigations and gathering necessary information.
Furthermore, the court confirmed that the agency may obtain information from entities not suspected of anticompetitive conduct, provided these entities possess documents or data relevant to the investigation.
Regarding documents claimed to be protected by legal professional privilege, the court clarified that only communications between a client and a qualified lawyer are covered. In Penam’s case, the company failed to demonstrate that it was acting as a client in this context, and thus the claim of confidentiality was not accepted.
The case is now under review by the Supreme Administrative Court following a cassation appeal filed by Penam.
