Unannounced inspections of the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic (dawn raids) have recently become more and more frequent. They represent a very intrusive interference and certainly a most unpleasant encounter, as many Slovak undertakings already experienced first-hand.

The power of the Antimonopoly Office to carry out dawn raids is derived from Section 22a of the Slovak Competition Act. However, many specific questions are not governed by the Act and thus the Antimonopoly Office has broad discretion in its practice. Particular limits should be based on case law, but only a few decisions on dawn raids have been issued by Slovak courts and even fewer have set particular rules governing the conduct of inspections (decisions of the Supreme Court in ŠEVT and AT Computer), while other decisions only address the procedural question of whether filing an action on unlawful interference must be preceded by a complaint under the Complaints Act (Datalan and Stengl Consulting). More extensive case law exists on the European level (eg most recently, decisions of the Court of Justice of the EU in Deutsche Bahn and Nexans, as well as decisions of the European Court of Human Rights Vinci and Delta pekárny. However, European case law cannot always be applied in Slovak settings concerning some specific procedures employed by the Slovak Antimonopoly Office.