What it is
These are Serbia's rules on buyer conduct in supply chains for agricultural, food, and products of strategic importance for market supply. The institution applying the rules is the Commission for Protection of Competition, or KZK. On June 29, 2026, KZK's Council adopted guidance on how the commission will assess unfair trade practices; on June 30, KZK and Danas/eKapija publicly described it.
What is already decided
The guidance has been adopted by KZK's Council and published in Serbia's Official Gazette. It takes effect on July 4, 2026, eight days after publication. The document does not create a new policy from scratch; it clarifies how KZK will apply the law: what is always banned, what may be allowed only under conditions, and how commercial pressure on suppliers will be recognized.
The blacklist
The blacklist covers practices from Article 6 of the law that are banned in all circumstances. The public description of the rules mentions late payment, late cancellation of perishable-goods orders, unilateral contract changes without the supplier's written consent, refusal to confirm a contract in writing, shifting a trader's costs onto the supplier, and pressure through multilateral offsets or transfer of debts to third parties.
Payments and order cancellation
For perishable agricultural and food products, a buyer may not agree or make payment later than 30 days after the delivery period ends or an invoice is issued. For other products, the maximum is 60 days. Those deadlines cannot be extended even with supplier consent or by invoking commercial practice. A perishable-goods order may not be cancelled less than 30 days before the agreed delivery, except in force-majeure cases; KZK will also examine whether the supplier realistically could sell the goods to another buyer.
The gray list
The gray list covers Article 7 practices that are not automatically banned but are allowed only if clear conditions are met. These include returning unsold goods, charging for storage, listing fees, additional promotional display, marketing activities, sales-data provision, and passing promotion costs on to the supplier. In such cases, the buyer must show that the service was actually provided, that the supplier requested or accepted it, and that the fee is proportionate to real costs.
Commercial retaliation
KZK separately identifies commercial retaliation: pressuring or punishing a supplier for using legal rights or refusing unfair business terms. In the Danas/eKapija examples, this can mean removing products from sale, cutting orders, delaying receipt of goods, withholding marketing support, or any other measure that can harm the supplier's position. An order reduction may be considered significant if it is more than 20% below average monthly or contracted quantities and seriously disrupts production planning or leaves the supplier with surplus stock.
Why it matters
For producers and suppliers, this is protection against a strong buyer that can dictate deadlines, change prices or quantities, and push commercial risks back through the chain. For traders, it is a set of checkable rules: contracts, invoices, written confirmations, promotional services, and order changes need documentation. For grocery shoppers, the issue matters indirectly: stable payments and predictable orders affect whether suppliers can plan food production and deliveries normally.
Next open question
After July 4, 2026, the next checkable point will be KZK's first cases or further explanations applying the guidance: which documents the commission treats as sufficient, how it separates an ordinary commercial dispute from an unfair practice, and what sanctions appear in specific cases.