Methodology of Penalty Calculation for Competition Law Violation Shall Become Obligatory For AMCU and Courts

On 12.11.2015 Verkhovna Rade of Ukraine supported in the first hearing the Draft Law № 2431 as of 20.05.2015 «On Amendments to Economic Competition Protection Policy regarding AMCU Calculation of Penalty for Violation of Economic Competition Law».

The Draft Law introduces amendments into the Laws of Ukraine «On Protection against Unfair Competition» and «Protection of Economic Competition», which bind the AMCU authorities to use the respective Methodology for the calculation of penalties for breaching the economic competition protection law. It is worth to mention that the current version of the provisions thereof do not impose such obligation on the Antimonopoly Committee.

Moreover, the Draft Law allows for submission of the appeals to the commercial court against the AMCU decision regarding the imposed penalties and/or enforced remedies for the violation of economic competition protection legislation. Therefore, the commercial court should also use the abovementioned Methodology when considering such kind of cases. Thus, during the proceedings regarding the AMCU decisions appeals the respective court may enforce the following judgments:

• Adjustment of the penalty amount designated by AMCU decision;
• Adjustment of the remedies enforced by AMCU decision for the breach of economic competition protection law;
• Declare the AMCU decision regarding the imposed penalties and/or enforced remedies for the violation of economic competition protection law to be void.

It is noteworthy that the abovementioned calculation Methodology has already been assessed by Legal Alliance Company. Please refer to the following link for the analysis of this Methodology:http://legalalliance.com.ua/ukr/news/2333/.