The Czech anti-trust office (UOHS) is investigating Seznam.cz, the largest Czech internet company, which includes a major Czech language search engine, as well as news and streaming websites.

It is not clear what precisely UOHS is investigating. Czech Radio wrote that UOHS could be looking into “the dominant position of the company on the market” and the “potential abuse of this dominance in some field”. The broadcaster also noted that the review stage is not public and could last several months before a full-scale probe is opened.

“I cannot provide any concrete information about what areas are touched by this review, because it could impact the undertaken review,” UOHS spokesperson Martin Svanda was quoted as saying by Czech Radio.

Czechia is one of the few countries in the world where the Google search engine has a serious rival. As bne Intellinews reported last month,  owner billionaire Ivo Lukacoivc said recently he is considering an IPO of his company.

Czech Radio also noted that even though the review is not public, UOHS admitted to the review in its own press statement, which was published in response to critical articles by Seznam's online news outlet Seznam Zpravy (SZ),  authored by Czechia’s leading investigative journalists Adela Jelinkova and Lukas Valasek.

The SZ reporting looks into contacts between UOHS CEO Petr Mlsna and Michal Petrik, who is indicted for his role in a nationwide corruption scandal involving large-scale and systematic public tenders manipulation using a hacked lottery system.  

In a press statement dated August 28, UOHS wrote that the article “could be a warning gesture from the Seznam side towards the office [UOHS], which recently began to follow the company’s actions”.

In response to the Czech Radio inquiry, Svanda stated that "the reason behind the articles seems to be our stance towards the reform of the supervision over public procurement". The reform backed by the Ministry of Regional Development and several NGOs could curtail the oversight that the UOHS currently has over public procurement. 

In its own press release on the UOHS August 28 press release, Seznam stressed that SZ has an "independent" editorial room which "does not fall under any form of editorial governance, control or supervision from the side of Seznam.cz, a.s."

The company also said it is "unacceptable for the organ of public power [UOHS] to accuse publicly, without any evidence, another body of revenge, abuse of media, creating of pressure, because the office [UOHS] is supposed to follow the body as part of its regulatory activity."  

UOHS head Mlsna has been repeatedly criticised by anti-corruption journalists and NGOs, including the Czech branch of Transparency International, as "having failed" during his stint at the helm of UOHS.

"Petr Mlsna has such a unique position that even individual cabinet members can be afraid to go against him because major state investments by which voters judge ministers' work depend on his decision-making," TI board member and its lawyer Petr Leyer commented in July.    

Country’s liberal journalists have also criticised Lukacovic himself for his online activities, including his comments published on X (formerly Twitter) social media about SZ allegedly “drifting away from its right-wing orientation”, which preceded the replacement of seasoned editor Jiri Kubik in SZ’s editorial room.  

More recently Lukacovic also posted a baseless accusation on his X profile directed against environmental analyst Tades Zdarsky and accusing Zdarsky’s platform NaZemi [OnEarth], which advocates non-growth activities, of “sucking out CZK47mn in subsidies” even though the platform has received no state subsidies and relies on voluntary donations from its followers, as Zdarsky was quick to point out.

"Organisation NaZemi functions since 2003 [... and] primarily focuses on education, we focus on non-growth approximately since 2021. We have not yet received any subsidies from the state for non-growth" activities," Zdarsky wrote on his X profile last week.