On April 5, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) launched an investigation into anticompetitive concerted actions on the primary sugar market against Astarta Group and Radekhiv Sugar LLC (Lviv region), the committee said on its website on Monday.
The state regulator said that over the past few months it had studied the situation when these companies, which together occupy a significant share of 40% to influence the Ukrainian beet sugar market, in September-November 2020, similarly increased wholesale selling prices for sugar by an average of 48%.
The committee said that it sees no objective grounds for such a price increase, since there was no sugar deficit in Ukraine at that time, taking into account the transitional reserves, import volumes and a decrease in domestic consumption. The committee said that the production of this product in Ukraine last year decreased by 22.3% compared to 2019, the yield of sugar beet decreased by 7.8%, its sugar content by 1.7%, and its sown area by 2.7%.
It is also specified that Astarta Group and Radekhiv Sugar similarly limited competition in the market, having received the opportunity to raise prices above the competitive level, although they are in different conditions of economic activity.
The AMCU said, citing data from the London Stock Exchange, that in September-November 2020, world prices for beet sugar did not grow as sharply as in Ukraine, and there were no significant fluctuations in foreign exchange markets or an increase in taxation.
“As part of the investigation, in addition to Astarta and Radekhiv Sugar, the committee is studying the actions of other manufacturers in this market. I emphasize that the AMCU will not limit itself to checking possible non-competitive actions in the sugar market. In the near future, we will investigate the situation in the markets of other socially important products, which have risen in price recently,” the press service said, citing head of committee Olha Pischanska.
Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It includes eight sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 243,000 hectares and dairy farms with 25,000 cows, seven elevators, a biogas complex and a soybean processing plant in Poltava region (Globino Processing Plant LLC).
Radekhiv Sugar LLC is one of the largest sugar beet producers in Ukraine with production facilities in Radekhiv (Lviv region), Chortkiv, Khorostkiv, Kozova and Zbarazh (all located in Ternopil region).
According to the data on the company’s website, Radekhiv Sugar is part of the Pfeifer & Langen Investments group of companies (Poland), which, except for a Ukrainian asset, also owns five sugar factories in Germany, shares in enterprises in Poland, Romania, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic.
The Pivnichny (Northern) Economic Court of Appeals on February 2 rejected the complaint of Imperial Tobacco Ukraine and Imperial Tobacco Production Ukraine against the decision of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) on a fine of UAH 460 million on suspicion of anti-competitive concerted actions of cigarette manufacturers and distributors.
“Imperial Tobacco Ukraine and Imperial Tobacco Production Ukraine will appeal the decision of the Court of Appeals in the Supreme Court. In addition, the companies are simultaneously preparing to transfer the case to the international investment arbitration, because it is becoming increasingly clear that in Ukraine foreign investors cannot count on a fair trial,” the group of companies said in a press release.
According to Imperial Tobacco, the decision of the court is the result of political pressure.
“Unfortunately, the appellate link of the judiciary has demonstrated the same bias and political bias as the court of first instance. This development of events gives another alarming signal to the community of foreign investors about the real state of legal proceedings in Ukraine,” the press service of the company said citing director general of Imperial Tobacco Rastislav Cernak.
The company clarified that the fine of UAH 460 million was paid in full the day after the loss in the court of first instance – July 21, 2020, in order to prevent the accrual of additional penalties and to avoid further pressure on the company’s operating activities from the AMCU.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) has begun collecting information and studying the electric car charging market, the committee said on its website.
It notes the intensive growth of the electric car market in recent years, while the market for commercial charging stations is also growing. In this regard, the AMCU starts monitoring it in order to control compliance with the legislation on the protection of economic competition.
“The purpose of this control is to determine the state of the competitive environment in the market and its assessment; to identify and determine the problems in the market that hinder the development of competition; to ensure compliance with legislation on the protection of economic competition; to prepare, if necessary, based on the results of such control, proposals for the implementation of measures aimed to develop competition,” the committee notes.
The AMCU called on current and potential market participants to provide information and considerations on possible economic, organizational, administrative and technical barriers that may prevent new companies from competing in the electric vehicle charging market.
As reported, Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Krykliy said in November 2020 that Ukraine supports the use of ecological modes of transport in cities, therefore, as part of the National Transport Strategy until 2030, it plans to completely replace all urban public transport with electric one and create the appropriate infrastructure for this.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) has permitted the Dragon Capital investment company to acquire over 50% of the shares of Treeum Holdings Limited, the owner of the Finance.ua and Minfin.com.ua publications, as well as Finline, Bank Online and Multi.ua.
“Permission is granted to Dragon Capital Investments Limited (Nicosia, Cyprus) to acquire shares of Treeum Holdings Limited (Larnaca, Cyprus), which grants that 50% of the votes in the company’s management body are exceeded,” the committee said on its website on Monday.
According to the information on the holding’s website, Treeum is a Ukrainian online platform that compares and sells financial products, supports an online currency exchange platform, reliable ratings and statistics, as well as news, comments and professional analytics.
The revenue of Finance.ua in 2019 amounted to about UAH 17.8 million, net profit – about UAH 0.5 million, that of Minfinmedia – UAH 36.9 million and almost UAH 1 million, respectively, Banking Class – UAH 10.9 million and UAH 0.1 million.
Multi.ua and Finline last year saw revenues of UAH 6.6 million and UAH 1.3 million, respectively, and a net loss of UAH 0.7 million and UAH 2.3 million.
According to the public register, Ksenia Vaisman, a Russian citizen living near Kyiv, is indicated as the beneficiary of Treeum Holdings Limited.
This year, USAID Financial Sector Transformation Project (FST) financed the launch of the LIGA.Money platform by LigaBusinessInform Investment Agency. According to the agency, NV and Finclub also participated in the competition, while the companies of Treeum Holdings were not admitted to it.
Dragon Capital is one of the largest investment companies in Ukraine. It works in the field of direct investment and financial services, provides a full range of investment banking and brokerage services to corporate and private clients. The ultimate beneficiary of Dragon Capital in the public register is a Czech citizen, President of the European Business Association Tomas Fiala.
Fiala is the owner of the NV media holding, which includes the eponymous magazine, portal and radio.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) has made a decision on the case of violation of competition law by the pharmaceutical group Novo Nordisk, fining it and its distributors UAH 188 million, according to the AMCU website.
“Thanks to the introduced mechanism for providing after-sales discounts, distributors of the Novo Nordisk group companies received additional income significantly higher than 10%, as provided by the legislation of Ukraine, and in some cases – up to 80%. The chain of opaque pricing led to an unjustified overstatement of the selling prices for Novo Nordisk medicines and provided distributors with competitive advantages, without which other participants in the sales of Novo Nordisk medicines could not compete with them,” the message says.
It is clarified that it is about setting prices for medicines intended for the treatment of diabetes mellitus, problems with growth retardation and for the treatment of hemophilia by Novo Nordisk A/S (Denmark), Novo Nordisk Health Care AG (Switzerland) and a number of pharmaceutical distributors and pharmacies: Medpharkom LLC, Medpharkom-Center PrJSC, BaDM LLC, BaDM-B LLC, Pharmacy 3I LLC, Ganza PrJSC, Pharmadis LLC and Medpharm LLC.
AMCU fined Novo Nordisk A/S UAH 134 million, Novo Nordisk Health Care AG UAH 1.7 million, PrJSC Medpharkom-Center UAH 28.7 million, BaDM Group UAH 16.7 million, LLC Pharmacy 3I LLC UAH 680,000, PrJSC Ganza UAH 340,000, LLC Medpharm UAH 5.5 million.
Production at Medpharkom LLC and Pharmadis LLC was discontinued due to the liquidation of the companies.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) has started an investigation on the indices of possible anti-competitive coordinated actions when fixing price on the energy coal of state-run mines for the needs of thermal power plants (TPP) and combined heat and power supply plants (CHPP).
“The committee established that within 2017-2018 Energy and Coal Industry Ministry of Ukraine held meetings with state-owned enterprise Derzhvuhlepostach, PJSC Donbasenergo, LLC DTEK Energo, Ukrinterenergo State Foreign Trade Company, PJSC Cherkasy Khimvolokno, LLC TehNova company to reach the agreements over fixing prices for coal products of state-run enterprises for TPPs and CHPs that is confirmed by the protocols of these meetings,” reads by regulator-issued report.
According to the AMCU, these companies are potential competitors in the electricity and steam coal markets, respectively, the support of these companies to increase prices for coal products for TPPs and CHPs to a certain level could lead to distortion of competition.
In this regard, the committee began consideration of the case regarding anti-competitive actions of these companies, violation by the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry of law on the protection of economic competition in the form of inducing business entities to take anti-competitive concerted actions and promotion of such violations.
As reported, in recent years Ukraine’s Energy and Coal Industry Ministry during meetings recommended prices for coal sales of state mines for thermal power plants.
