The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) allowed Aqua Solar Invest LLC (Bershad, Vinnytsia region) to purchase Kobylovoloki distillery (Kobylovoloki village, Ternopil region), which is part of Ukrspirt, and Vitagro Energy LLC (Gvardeyske village, Khmelnitsk region) was allowed to purchase the Marylivsky distillery (Nagirnyanka village, Ternopil region) from Ukrspirt.
The Committee approved the corresponding permits for the privatized assets at its meeting on December 1.
LLC “Aqua Solar Invest” won the right for privatization of Kobylivolokskyi distillery for UAH 70,25 mln on September 19, 2022.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, the ultimate beneficiaries of “Aqua Solar Invest” with a registered capital of 25 million UAH are Alexander Yaroshenko (25% in the share capital), Lilia Astapova (25%) and Elena Smirnova (25%), while until December 2020 the company was fully owned by Felix Lutsky. The legal entity is engaged in distillation, rectification and blending of alcoholic beverages, while before January 2021 its line of business was real estate trade.
This company already has experience in privatization of assets of state enterprise “Ukrspirt” – in October 2020 it won the online auction “Prozorro.Sells” the right to privatize Bershadskyi distillery for 19.81 million UAH, and in early February 2022 closed the deal to purchase it, having received permission of the AMCU.
The immovable property of the Kobylivolok distillery to be privatized with a total area of 11.5 thousand square meters is located on seven plots of land in Terebovlyansky district of Ternopil region with a total area of 36.95 hectares. The plant includes production buildings, granary, distillery, hangars, pumping stations, greenhouse, starch and malt shops, gas station, etc., as well as the technological equipment and the necessary communications.
The daily capacity of the distillery is 2.7 thousand dal of ethyl alcohol. The company was founded in 1905 and modernized in 2016. Production at the facility has been temporarily suspended.
In turn, Vitagro Energy won the right to privatize Marylivskyi distillery for UAH 150 mln on September 20, 2022.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, the ultimate beneficiary of Vitagro Energy LLC with a registered capital of 10 thousand UAH is Serhiy Labaziuk, a member of parliament (the Za Maybutne parliamentary faction). The main activity of the company is the production of electricity, but the legal entity may also engage in the cultivation of root crops and melons, as well as auxiliary activities in crop farming.
The company is part of the large Vitagro holding, which is engaged in the production and processing of crops, including fruits and vegetables, dairy farming and pig breeding. The Group cultivates about 85 thousand hectares of land in Khmelnytsky, Ternopil and Rivne regions and has a livestock of 110 thousand pigs.
According to Vitagro’s website, Vitagro Energy was founded in 2018 to develop renewable energy projects. The company has four solar power plants in the Khmelnitsky region on a total area of 29.5 hectares with a total capacity of 12.9 MW, and also works with other sources of renewable energy, such as wind and biomass.
The Marylivsky distillery is located in the village of Nagirnyanka, Chortkivsky district, Ternopil region. The list of assets includes 1518 items of buildings, equipment, movable and other property.
The enterprise is located on three land plots with a total area of 26.6 hectares and consists of an administration building, seven production shops, a bard storage facility, a starch workshop, greenhouses, hangars, warehouses for grain, finished products and alcohol, as well as other constructions and infrastructure facilities.
The distillery was founded in 1928, the maximum production capacity in 2009 was 7300 thousand dal per day.
Thus, the privatization of these two assets of Ukrspirt will allow the State Property Fund of Ukraine to transfer 220.25m dollars to the state budget.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) fined four companies UAH 7.1 million for collusion in tenders for construction and repair of premises in the military and medical sectors, the agency’s press service said.
According to the report, LLC “Kraevid+”, LLC “Interval Bud”, LLC “BVK “Altera” and LLC “Prospect Budcenter” were fined for collusion in bidding for the construction of a training class of a military unit and a dormitory, repair of a unit training center and a gym for military personnel. In addition, the procurement included the reconstruction of the infectious disease department of Smelyanska city hospital and reconstruction of the Vyshgorod central district pharmacy.
The AMCU found that the above-mentioned companies financially supported each other during the procurement and synchronized their actions at the auction, involved the same person for the preparation of financial statements, management of bank accounts, etc.
In addition to the fine, the companies are prohibited from participating in public procurement for three years.
According to Opendatabot, the owner of “Kraevid+” (Chernihiv) is Fedor Filipov, “Interval Bud” (Cherkasy) – Igor Shchur, “BVK “Altera” (Cherkasy) – Dmitry Zaporozhets, “Prospect Budcenter” (Cherkasy) – Vladimir Diachok.
The Northern Interregional Territorial Branch of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) fined Forma LLC and IBK Ukrbud LLC for bid rigging for the purchase of design works for the construction of the Podolsk bridge in Kyiv.
According to the press service of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, it was found that the companies coordinated their actions: they used common IP addresses for managing accounts and for tax reporting, acted simultaneously when receiving bank guarantees, etc.
Based on this, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine recognized two companies as violators of the legislation on the protection of economic competition and imposed fines. In addition, violators are banned from participation in the auction for a period of three years.
According to Opendatabot, the owner of IBK Ukrbud LLC is Maksim Fomichov. The owner of Kyiv-based Forma LLC is Oleksandr Stepenko.
Both companies participated in the tender of the KP “Directorate for the Construction of Road Transport Facilities of Kyiv” in the “Prozorro” system for the purchase of design work for the construction of the Podolsk bridge in 2018. The winner of the auction was “IBK “Ukrbud” with an offer of UAH 11 million.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) may permit Gorky Agrofirm (Kyiv), part of the agricultural holding Ristone Holdings, to purchase Kosari distillery (the village of Kosari and the town of Smila, Cherkasy region), the right to which the company won at a privatization auction in November for UAH 162.88 million.
The state regulator considered the relevant issue at a meeting on December 30.
According to the website of the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF), the privatized asset consists of 1,360 names of buildings, structures, movable and other property, including an industrial building, a fermentation department, a granary and a distillery, a company store, a pig farm, warehouses, hangars, etc. The facility is equipped with basic technological equipment, as well as the necessary communications.
The enterprise is located on nine land plots with a total area of 75.74 hectares the village of Kosari and the town of Smila.
Ristone Holdings is an agricultural vertically integrated holding.
Ristone Holdings cultivates 65,800 hectares on the territory of Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhia regions. It is engaged in the cultivation of grain and industrial crops, animal husbandry, production and wholesale and retail trade in agricultural products, in particular, flour, bread, bakery products, etc.
Privatization of the alcohol industry involves the sale by the State Property Fund of 41 distilleries of the state-owned enterprise Ukrspyrt and another 37 factories united in the Ukrspyrt concern. In total, it is expected to attract about UAH 2 billion. At the same time, in 2020, the amount of assets sold at 20 auctions amounted to UAH 1.26 billion.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) on Wednesday imposed a UAH 80.11 million fine on JSC Dniproazot, a monopolist in the liquid chlorine market, due to the suspension of its production and sale.
“The stopping of production of liquid chlorine by the enterprise during the period from June 18, 2018 to July 19, 2018 and the termination of its sale from July 1, 2018 to July 19, 2018 are recognized as abuse of a monopoly (dominant) position in the market for the primary sale of liquid chlorine,” the committee’s press release says.
According to it, the company argued that production was stopped due to a significant increase in a gas price and the lack of working capital, but the AMCU, following an investigation, claims that there were no significant changes in the weighted average prices for the purchase of natural gas by the company.
In addition, it was established that at the time of the stoppage of production, Dniproazot had circulating and credit funds available for current settlements with counterparties and conducting business activities.
The Committee believes that among the motives for stopping production was the company’s desire to resume legal relations with JSC Ukrnafta to obtain cheaper raw materials and the company’s intention to raise prices for liquid chlorine.
Following the case consideration, it was established that during 2017-2019, Dniproazot was the only enterprise that produced liquid chlorine in Ukraine, with market shares of 99%, 78% and 68%, respectively, the report says.
The AMCU also noted that since the maximum reserves of liquid chlorine at water utilities could not exceed 15-30% of the daily requirement, some of them found themselves in a crisis situation, since they had limited chlorine residues.
“During the period of Dniproazot’s downtime, meetings were held with the participation of government representatives, during which some water utilities warned about the threat of stopping the disinfection of drinking water… The technological process for purifying drinking water is continuous, so a delay in the reagent delivery could turn into an epidemiological catastrophe on a national scale,” the AMCU said.
The AMCU clarified that in July 2018, the price of goods sold by Dniproazot in tanks increased by 277%, in cylinders – by 133%.
The Committee noted that the issue of setting prices by the enterprise during 2017-2019 is being investigated in another antitrust case.
Dniproazot specializes in production of carbamide, ammonia, sodium hydroxide, liquid chlorine and hydrochloric acid and is controlled by the structures of Privat Group.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has allowed PrJSC Vodafone Ukraine to concentrate more than 50% of the telecom operator Vega (Farlep-Invest).
According to a statement released on the AMCU website, the committee made such a decision following the meeting on Thursday.
“The aggregate shares of concentration participants in the involved regional markets do not exceed 11%. In all commodity markets involved in the concentration, except for the voice traffic termination services market, there are a large number of business entities, they are competitors of the concentration participants and offer consumers similar services,” the AMCU said.
According to the AMCU, the seller within the planned concentration is SCM Group, which also includes PrJSC Ukrtelecom.
Both of these companies own a frequency resource in the 2.3 GHz range (15 MHz in six regions), as well as in the 2.5-2.7 GHz range.
Vodafone Ukraine is the second largest mobile operator in Ukraine.
The national telecom operator Vega is part of the telecommunications division of Rinat Akhmetov’s SCM group. The operator offers complex solutions in the field of fixed telephony, broadband Internet access and data transmission. The company is present in 22 regions of Ukraine.
