The Ukrainian parliament passed at second reading bill No. 2168a that increase the threshold for receiving permits from the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine for economic concentration by companies.
A total of 248 lawmakers backed the document on Jan. 26.
One of the authors of the bill Viktoria Ptashnyk (Samopomich faction)
said in the parliament that the bill relieves small companies from the
necessity of receiving permits for concentration at the Antimonopoly
Committee of Ukraine in the cases when their operation does not affect
competition on the market.
The Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine said in its
explanation posted on the official website that according to the bill
the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine would not show its interest to the
acquisition and sale of companies, asset value of which does not exceed
EUR 8 million, and the threshold of control over concentrations is
increased: before acquisition large concentrations between companies
will be checked with annual turnover of over EUR 150 million.
Chair of the parliamentary economic policy committee Andriy Ivanchuk
said in the parliament that the bill introduces more flexible procedure
for receiving preliminary permits for concentration and increased the
fee for submission of applications for receiving these permits by five
times.
An attempt to adopt another bill regarding the operation of the
Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine – on amendments to Ukrainian laws on
protecting economic competition related to defining fines for violation
of legislation on protection of economic competition by the Antimonopoly
Committee of Ukraine (No. 2431) – failed. The disputable issue was the
requirement to ban the revision of sanctions imposed by the committee in
courts.
MP Svitlana Zalischuk said that the proposal is not in line with the
Ukraine-EU Association Agreement that obliges allowing courts to
consider sanctions imposed by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine.
The bill was sent for repeated second reading with 241 supporting votes.
