The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has opened a case on the fact that ProZorro.Sale state enterprise had established additional terms of the contract and payment for access by operators of authorized electronic platforms to the electronic trading system ProZorro.Sale.
“The case was initiated on the statements of one of the operators, who complained about the unreasonable increase in fees for the development of the electronic trading system and the provision of access to ProZorro.Sale only after additional conditions are met,” the statement on the official website of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine reads.
It is indicated that the state-owned enterprise requires a certain fee for the development of the electronic trading system, however, the AMCU has reason to believe that its size is not economically justified.
The committee also found out that ProZorro.Sale state enterprise provides operators with access to the ProZorro.Sale trading system only if they fulfill additional marketing obligations that do not directly relate to the subject of the access agreement and aim to promote the trading system.
The AMCU noted that back in 2021, the committee began to study the situation on the market for providing services for access of operators of authorized electronic platforms to the electronic trading system, which is used to conduct auctions in normatively defined areas.
As a result of the adoption of control measures, recommendations were provided to ProZorro.Sale aimed at eliminating the above problems. However, the state-owned enterprise has not taken comprehensive steps to prevent possible negative consequences for the competitive environment.
Now, in case of evidence of the negative impact of the actions of ProZorro.Sale on competition in the market, the company may face a fine of up to 10% of income per year preceding the decision on the violation.
The net income of the state enterprise in 2021 increased by 2.7 times, to UAH 141.81 million, and its net profit increased to UAH 42.43 million from UAH 950,000 in 2020.
In the first half of 2022, the revenue of ProZorro.Sale decreased by 36.3%, to UAH 25.14 million, and its net loss amounted to UAH 6.92 million against UAH 550,000 of net profit for the first half of 2021.
