The Supreme Court has sided the cassation appeal of Tedis Ukraine against the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine and invalidated the earlier decision of the committee to impose a fine of UAH 3.4 billion on the tobacco distributor.
“Today the Supreme Court put an end to the dispute between Tedis Ukraine and the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, which accused the company of allegedly committing anti-competitive concerted actions and imposed a fine of UAH 3.4 billion. This decision is final and not subject to appeal,” the company said in a press-release on Tuesday.
According to it, the Supreme Court overturned the decisions of the trial court and the court of appeals, made in favor of the committee.
“From the very beginning of this trial, we clearly understood that justice would be on our side and were able to prove it before the highest judicial body of the country,” the company said, quoting Director General Taras Korniyachenko as saying. According to him, the company has been working exclusively in the legal field throughout its ten-year history.
The Supreme Court said in a comment on Tuesday that it had verified the conclusions of the lower courts on the legality and validity of the impugned decision of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, given the statutory limits of authority, but not establishing the actual circumstances of the plaintiff’s behavior. Taking into account the impossibility of bringing any person to justice on the basis of decisions of the Antimonopoly Committee in other cases (without prejudice), without mandatory proof of guilt in each individual case (in each case) and taking into account the erroneous legal qualification of actions of Tedis Ukraine LLC, the Supreme Court upheld the lawsuit,” the court said in the statement.
At the same time, the Supreme Court said that the invalidation of the decision of the Antimonopoly Committee does not deprive this body of the right to conduct a re-inspection in compliance with the requirements of current legislation.
As reported, the committee in October 2019 imposed a fine of UAH 6.5 billion for anticompetitive concerted actions on four tobacco producers and Tedis Ukraine. Philip Morris International (PMI) at the end of last year filed a lawsuit with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID, Washington, DC, the United States) on bilateral investment arbitration against Ukraine in connection with an unfair, in their opinion, fine of the committee. British American Tobacco, which lost an appeal at the end of January, also announced such plans.
Tedis Ukraine is one of the largest Ukrainian distribution companies. The company employs about 2,300 employees. The regional network consists of 32 structural divisions throughout the country. The company covers a retail network of about 45,000 retail points throughout Ukraine.
