On 21 October 2020, during the kick-off event of the EU-funded
Twinning Project, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (the
"AMC") announced that it is preparing
the draft law that will introduce amendments to the Ukrainian
merger filing thresholds. The AMC will submit the draft law to the
Ukrainian Parliament early this November and expects it to be
adopted later this year.
According to the AMC, the proposed merger control reform will
provide that:
- the turnover/assets value of a controlling seller would be excluded when calculating the target's notification thresholds (currently, the turnover/assets of the seller controlling the target are taken into account when calculating the merger thresholds of the target, and the filing may be technically triggered based on a seller only); and
- the local (Ukrainian) threshold for a target would be decreased from EUR 4 million to EUR 2 million.
Among other things, it is envisaged that the draft law will:
- set up an effective settlement procedure;
- introduce a partial immunity within the leniency procedure (i.e. those companies which are not the first to inform the AMC of an undetected cartel or other anti-competitive concerted practices should be able to benefit from a reduction of fine if they provide significant evidence to the AMC). This change should encourage companies to apply for leniency, which has been underused in Ukraine as, so far, only the first applicant may benefit from it; and
- broaden the AMC's powers in collecting evidence in cases of competition law violations (primarily cartels and abuses of dominance), in particular, the AMC will be able to cooperate closely with the national police.
As regards the markets that are currently in focus, according to the AMC these are the markets for oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods (especially sunflower oil and chicken), rail freight and seaport operations. The regulator will now be paying much more attention to digital markets in the future.
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