On September 2, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine began consideration of the case on the grounds that PJSC “Scientific and Production Center” Borshchahiv Chemical and Pharmaceutical Plant “(BHFZ) committed a violation under Article 16 of the Law “On Protection from Unfair Competition” in the form of unlawful collection of commercial secrets of PrJSC “Pharmaceutical firm “Darnitsa” (both from Kyiv).
“In a statement to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, the complainant said that during the consideration of the case in one of the domestic courts, his competitor noted in the text of the recall information about PJSC FF Darnitsa, which is a commercial secret. We are talking about information about active pharmaceutical ingredients imported by the company,” the antimonopoly agency said in a press release on Thursday.
According to the report, Darnitsa also alleges that it did not give the competitor permission to obtain, disclose or otherwise use information containing trade secrets. According to the applicant, the information was obtained in an unlawful way, since it cannot be known to third parties on legal grounds, since appropriate measures are taken to protect this data.
The Committee indicates that it has found that the applicant and the respondent are direct competitors.
The Office notes that this is the second complaint of this kind in its history. In 2018, by decision No. 30-r/tk, the Provisional Administrative Board fined Ergon-Electric LLC UAH 360,000 for misuse of the trade secret of its competitor, TIK Vector-VS LLC, received from its former employees.
The defendant unsuccessfully appealed against the decision of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine to the Economic Court in Kyiv, the Northern Economic Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. By a ruling dated November 23, 2020, the Supreme Court upheld the position of the committee and upheld the decision of the courts of first instance and appeal.
BHFZ and Darnitsa are among the largest Ukrainian pharmaceutical companies. Darnitsa owns 31.8037% of BHFZ shares.
