The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has imposed a fine of UAH 4.7 billion on the operators of the filling station network, which are part of the Privat Group, for anticompetitive concerted actions in setting prices for petroleum products.
According to the committee’s statement on Tuesday evening, in particular, a fine was imposed on PTF Avias LLC, Trading House Avias LLC, Prom Garant Plus LLC, Alliance Evolution LLC, PJSC Ukrtatnafta and 169 filling station operators (including PJSC Ukrnafta).
The committee said that within the framework of the case opened in 2016, it was established that in the field of retail trade in light petroleum products in Ukraine, there is a system of cashless payments with scratch cards and Avias fuel cards. About 1,625 filling stations take part in this project, which operate under different brands in all regions of Ukraine, occupying a 25% share of all filling stations in the country.
“The committee determined that the Avias project is organized, coordinated and operates with the aim of harmonizing the price and trading behavior of the participants,” the committee said.
In particular, Keropur®ENERGY gasoline and diesel fuel were sold throughout the network, the same prices were set at a time regardless of the brand of the filling station and the region, and there was also a “center” that included several business entities located at the same address in the city of Dnipro, where detailed planning and coordination of network activities was performed.
In addition, the committee found a significant number of standard, basically identical contracts for the sale and purchase of petroleum products and property, lease of filling stations and financial assistance, and also established that individuals, who held the positions of director, founder, signatory, accountant, manager, etc, often changed each other and worked simultaneously in several companies participating in the project.
In addition, the composition of legal entities – participants in the project was constantly changing (without changing the personal composition). This happened through the same liquidators and at similar addresses of the latest registration in Kharkiv.
The committee found that filling station operators, including Ukrnafta, purchased light oil products from Ukrtatnafta at prices higher than similar imported fuel.
“Such coordinated behavior of the Avias project participants violates competition between operators of filling stations in the market. Therefore, prices for light oil products in the Avias network were set in anti-competitive conditions. Taking this into account, the committee approved to impose fines on the above-mentioned business entities in the total amount of UAH 4.7 billion for these violations,” the committee said.
“Today we are summarizing the result of a great deal of work and many years of legal confrontation between the Antimonopoly Committee and the participants in conspiracy on the Ukrainian fuel market. Despite complicated circumstances and enormous resistance from the defendants, we completed the investigation and made the decision,” Chair of the committee Olha Pischanska said after the meeting.
