The new Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan concerning Natural Monopolies and Regulated Market dated 5 May 2015 (hereinafter – the 'Law'), that amended the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Competition dated 25 December 2008 (hereinafter – the 'Competition Law'), entered into force on 17 May 2015.
In this note we cover the most important developments made by the Law.
The Law introduced a definition of anticompetitive horizontal agreements or concerted actions (cartel) and discriminatory conditions.
The Law also introduced the procedure on prevention of violation of the antimonopoly legislation if the market entity's intended actions may lead to breach of the anti-trust legislation, where there are no grounds to start an investigation.
The most significant change made to the Competition Law is an increase of the threshold for acquisition of the shares in a legal entity, where such acquisition is regarded as an economical concentration from 25% up to 50%, i.e. the latest amendments to the Competition Law defines as economic concentration an acquisition of more than 50% voting shares (participatory interests) of a market entity if before such acquisition a purchaser has not owned any shares in the market entity or owned 50% of its voting shares (participatory interests) or less.
The term of anti-trust filing was reduced from 50 to 30 calendar days that noticeably simplifies the procedure of obtaining consent for economic concentration.
Please also note that the Law, henceforth, establishes the minimum term, within which the market entities and other persons shall submit to the antimonopoly authority the requested information, equal to 5 business days.
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Generally, the Law is designed for improvement of transparency, simplification of procedures and reduction of the term of the anti-trust filing .
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.