New Chairman of the Ukrainian Antitrust Agency just Appointed

Arzinger law firm, 
Kyiv, Ukraine, Wed, May 20, 2015

The AMCU is one of the two (the second oneis the state privatization authority - State Property Fund of Ukraine) veryimportant state agencies, which management was NOT timely replaced followingthe early last year's revolution of dignity in Ukraine. The former chairman ofthe agency has escaped the country last year immediately following therevolution and the AMCU was "temporarily" governed by one of the"old school" commissioners, who hasn’t really changed the practice,approaches and the vision of the watchdog. The authority has been walking in the"old shoes" and its reputation was extremely negative, - no reforms,lack of transparency, no proper communication etc.

The appointment of the new chairman of theagency was on numerous occasions blocked by various political pro-oligarchpowers, in particular by those, threatened by "normal course ofbusiness" of an antitrust agency in a civilized society. The AMCU has beentraditionally quite "infamous" for their blindness and lack ofactivity with regard to oligopolies and monopolies, controlled by domesticoligarchs and politicians, who wanted to have a "manually -controlled" chairman of the agency.

Today's appointment is a very importantsignal for the local and global legal and business community, that there is apolitical will to make reforms, that the new Ukraine understands the importanceof the agency and AMCU should start implementing global best practices.

We expect radical reform of the agency andlegislation as well as approaches & practice and hope, that we will be ableto see the first results very soon, which will raise the profile of my country,- Ukraine has been for years enjoying not the most excellent reputation inparticular due to the hostile attitude of the local competition agency.

As far as we know, the new chairman hasquite a very pragmatic agenda, understands the needs, priorities and balance ofinterests of the business and the state quite well and we are looking forwardto our cooperation with the agency and Yuri personally.

Arzinger is working now on some veryimportant laws to reform the antitrust legislation in particular with regard todue process (focus on transparency) and fine calculation methodology and wehope, that the laws will be supported by the agency and the parliament.

Weexpect to have a number of new changes in the area and I will allow myself toupdate you on the most interesting developments on regular basis.