The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine declared monopolist and fined Directorate-General for Rendering Services to Diplomatic Missions State Enterprise

On December 13^th, 2016, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine fined Directorate-General for Rendering Services to Diplomatic Missions State Enterprise for abuse of dominant position in the service market of maintenance and storage of work record books of diplomatic missions’ employees in Kyiv. In particular, during the investigation it was found that the enterprise holds almost 100% of the market. Thus, monopoly (dominant) position of Directorate-General for Rendering Services to Diplomatic Missions State Enterprise is due to its being determined as the only provider of diplomatic missions’ employees’ work record book maintenance and storage services in Kyiv.

As a result of the investigation the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine found that the state enterprise had set economically unreasonable high prices for its services of making records and storing work record books of diplomatic missions’ employees in the period from 2012 to October 2016. Such conditions, according to the Committee, would have been impossible, if significant competition existed in the market. Thus, the Committee found that such service conditions were possible due to the state enterprise abusing its monopoly position.

It should be noted that on January 26^th, 2016 the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine issued recommendations that drew attention to the violation. Accordingly, to stop the offence, the Committee ordered to establish the cost of each component of complex services of "paperwork for citizens obligated for military service to be employed by diplomatic missions" and "paperwork for citizens not obligated for military service to be employed by diplomatic missions" at economically reasonable level. Further, the Committee required envisaging that a diplomatic mission should pay only for the components it received.